The Voyage Home
by Kinsfire
Summary: The battle at the Ministry ended differently for Harry. When he came out of the fog of Time Turner dust, he found himself over 300 years in the future. Now he needs to find his home again.
1. Chapter 1

This will play fast and loose with canon for both Star Trek and Harry Potter, since the starting point is an alteration of the fight at the Ministry. If it doesn't work in Star Trek, then I'm throwing it out the window. As for Harry Potter, Book Sux and Book Sux, Part Deux did not/will not happen in this story. No horcruxes and no specially-introduced-just-for-the-story-goshwow!magical artifacts.

* * *

_**Appearance**_

The dust cleared, as did the sparkles in his eyes, and he staggered to the door after realising that he was alone. He shook his head a few times, feeling more than a little out of sorts.

_What happened to everyone? Last I remember, the Time Turners were shattering, and I inhaled some of the dust and started coughing. Neville and -_

"Hermione!"he screamed. "Where are you guys?" He began to run toward the door where he could last remember them being, but the area was clean. No one stood, and there was no sign that any fighting had happened, despite the running battle that had been happening. He traced back to the room where the prophecy had been stored, and found it standing empty - there were no globes anywhere in the room, but the shelves were all standing.

_That makes no sense. I saw them falling no more than a few minutes ago. What the hell did that sand do to me?_

He retraced his steps to the room with the broken Time Turners, and noted that they appeared to have been replaced. He pulled one out of the case. If I go back an hour, I should be able to figure out what happened.

Nothing happened. The sand fell, but the familiar feeling from when Hermione had taken him back in time to save Buckbeak and Sirius was missing . . . _I've gotta find out if Hermione made it . . . ._ He was nearing a panic. He headed for the other door in the room.

The door opened into the same damned circular room, which began to spin once more. "Argh!" he yelled. "I just want to find them and get us out of here!" The room stopped spinning, a single door before him. He wrenched it open and staggered through. It looked like it might be the direction that would lead him out. Maybe he'd find the others along the way.

No sign of his friends could be seen.

In fact, there was no sign of anyone living, anywhere he'd been so far.

He made it to the Atrium, which led him to another shock. It had undergone a major amount of design work since he'd headed into the bowels of the place. _When did they have the time to install the velvet rope maze?_ he wondered. _And where __**THE FUCK **__did everyone go?_

He realised that he had no Floo powder available, so he couldn't Floo to Hogwarts or Hogsmeade. _Looks like the Knight Bus, then._ He shrugged. _I need to find out where everyone is._

He stepped into the elevator and rose to the surface, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. When it reached the surface, he stepped out into a personal nightmare.

He wanted to look around, but the large squad had his attention. He reacted immediately, since their clothing was dark and their faces covered. "STUPEFY!" he yelled, trying to run behind the garbage tip.

He was unsuccessful.

* * *

He awoke suddenly, but didn't move. _Where am I, and how do I escape?_ He tried to stretch out his senses, but all he could hear were soft mechanical beeps and whistles.

_. . . the hell? What would Death Eaters be doing with anything Muggle in their homes?_

"You're safe, young man," a woman's voice said from beside him. "They had to stun you before you disappeared into the city of London and _really_ got lost."

"Where am I?" He opened his eyes to see a sterile white room, with a very attractive woman somewhere in her twenties holding a small box and a tiny salt shaker. The salt shaker made an odd warbling noise as she waved it at him.

"Starfleet headquarters in San Francisco," she replied. "You were brought here to bring you up to speed, and make sure that you're healthy. I can see signs of malnutrition."

"Up to speed on what, and how do I get back to England? Hermione and the rest might die in Voldemort's hands! They might already be dead!"

"Humour me, young man. What year is it?"

"It's June 18th, 1996. Why do you ask?" He was more than a little worried.

"Because for me it happens to be June 18th, 2358, by your reckoning."

* * *

He awoke some time later, his voice hoarse. "Are you all right now?" the Healer asked

"I don't know. How in hell do I verify that this isn't some really impressive illusion?"

"You think you might be in a holographic suite?" she asked with some curiosity.

"No, an illusion set by Death Eaters. You know, magic?"

She raised an eyebrow. "As in pointing your finger and casting a ball of fire at someone?"

"Well, it's more of a wand."

"But still - if you promise not to hurt me with it, will you show me what you're talking about?"

"There's -" he started, thinking about the Reasonable Restriction for Underage Magic, or whatever the statute's name was, but then he realised that he could use it to be found. "I promise not to hurt you in any way with my demonstration."

She opened a drawer. He could see his glasses and the prophecy globe in there, along with his wand. That startled him. They'd left him the globe and his wand? And how could he see?

"We fixed your eyes," she said as he picked up his glasses. "When we realised that you needed those glasses and weren't allergic to any of our treatments for your myopia."

"What's that going to cost?" he asked.

"That's not a problem. It was an easy procedure - ridiculously so - so I'm not worrying about it."

He held his wand. It felt right, but there was only one way to find out. He aimed at a stool in the room. "Wingardium Leviosa!" he intoned, and the stool rose into the air.

"Amazing! I heard that someone had invented a personal tractor beam once, but -" She pulled out a small block and unfolded it slightly. It warbled as she passed it along the length of the wand. "Amazing! Wood from a holly tree and a bird feather! How . . . never mind. The answer is undoubtedly magic."

Harry was stunned. This was an honest reaction from this woman. She was obviously a Muggle, but how had a noisemaker been able to tell her what - "What kind of feather?"

"Some bird. It's not in the tricorder's database, though."

"Not surprised. It's a phoenix feather."

Her eyes appeared to widen so much that Harry began to wonder if it was possible to actually have one's eyes fall out of their head.

* * *

The admiral strode into the room to find the young man talking to the Doctor. "Hello, I'm Admiral Wynd Jaaymeson. They thought I might be best to brief you on things, considering the fact that you came forward with your wand."

"You know what it's for?" the boy asked, agog. "The doctor didn't."

"Oh yes. They aren't common any longer, but what you call magic is known these days to some. In fact, it's what led us to develop some of our more interesting technology. Most of what you can do with your wand, we can do with a bit of technology."

"How did I get here?"

"Actually, that's what I'd like to know. We searched the historical records for you, and had some trouble, but what we did find was even more troubling."

"I hope I didn't do something wrong by coming here."

"We don't know, but by how you mean it, no, you did nothing wrong. I can't tell you what we learned just yet, but I can tell you that there are records from after the date that you told the doctor. So you'll be returning to your own time at some point, but how you do so is what's causing the confusion."

"Why?"

"Well, you're significantly older than the ten you are right now -"

"TEN? I was a little over a month away from sixteen when I . . . when this . . . GAH!"

"I've never heard of time travel making one younger, but it's not exactly something we have a large body of knowledge about. We still can't unlock all of the records in London's Ministry building. Believe me, we'd love to see what was in the Department of Mysteries."

"You know about -"

"It's part of why I was the one chosen to talk to you. We know about the existence of magic, as I said. As you can judge by what hasn't turned grey on the job, I've got red hair. Perhaps you might have known someone with the name Weasley?"

"You're a Weasley?" Harry asked excitedly. "From who?"

"Based on the era you're from, would you recognise the name William? Had a lot of brothers, and one sister?"

Harry grinned. "So you descended from Bill? I'm glad to see that the Weasleys survived in some way. Ron's one of my best friends. Don't know Ginny as well as I'd like -" He paused and scowled. "And I never will now, will I? Even if I return, I'm going to be so much older than them, won't I?"

"I can't tell you that. I can tell you that you'll be older than your current physical age. Don't ask, I can't say, both for temporal security reasons, and honestly, because I don't know."

Admiral Jaaymeson found himself intrigued by the way that the young man relaxed somewhat at the "I don't know" comment. _Gives credence to his statement about being older than he looks. An almost-eleven year old would get sulky. He looked a bit perturbed until I said that I don't know, and was even calming when I said there were security reasons._

"I'm curious about something, sir," Harry said. "Who were those guys who were outside the Ministry building when I came out?"

"London police. They registered an alarm in the Ministry building after hours. There was no signature of any sort to explain how you got in there - not even the trace of Apparition, I think it was called? You were suddenly there. And then you came out."

"Apparation," Harry said absently. "So the masks and dark clothes were for their protection, not knowing what exactly was coming out?"

"Precisely."

Something struck Harry. "Wait a second! They can technologically track magic now?"

"Well, we can tell that it's happened, and a few other things. Our technology takes advantage of quantum uncertainties, much like magic does. I'm what you'd call a . . . what was it . . . a 'Squeed?'"

"Squib," Harry replied with a laugh. "So your parents can cast spells?"

"Yeah. I went into Starfleet rather than the family business."

The two talked for a while longer, with Harry being brought up to speed in regards to magic and current technology. Something had happened that had caused the wall between the worlds to fall, although Wynd wouldn't explain what, and rather than the expected stringing up or burning of witches and wizards, the non-magical people began to study what the wizards did, and found ways of mimicking or replicating those effects. This had, in turn, led to the wizards finally breaking through their complacency, and that had been the dawn of the new peaceful age that they were currently enjoying. Yes, there were wars out in space, but they had largely managed to quell that on Earth and the human colonies. There was even a nearby colony of New Londinium made up largely of wizards and witches.

"Would it be possible for _me_ to join this Starfleet?" Harry finally asked after he'd been given the quick history lesson.

"Honestly, I suspect that it's the only way that you'll get home, Harry," the Admiral replied.

* * *

He was given access to terminals and such to begin learning, and he startled everyone in how quickly he learned things. "The only real way to describe the difference is to describe the old me as if . . . well, my thoughts moved as if I were swimming through treacle in comparison, now that I have a difference to compare it to," he explained to one of the doctors who asked him. "Now that I'm here, I don't seem to have that problem. And the spells I've cast seem to have more power to them."

"You mentioned this Voldemort person," Admiral Jaaymeson said when this was relayed to him. "That scar was a connection to him. Is it possible that it might have been more true than anyone suspects - that he was draining your magic and life force to keep himself alive? It might explain your increase in energy and ability to think better."

"Wouldn't surprise me, to be honest. I may never know. What's going to be done with me once I'm up to speed?"

"Well, at the age you appear to be, we'd have you in school, but I suspect that we'll see about getting you a test to enter Starfleet Academy. I have a strong feeling that you'll do well."

* * *

He was sent to the New Londinium colony to finish his magical training, learning more than he would have thought possible. They verified for him that with Voldemort dead in the past - verified by the records that they had been able to salvage - the drain on his magic and thoughts was gone.

He took to his studies like Hermione did - reading everything he could get his hands on. They tsk'ed his Potions knowledge, but when he explained the way he'd been taught, they worked out a method to bring him up to speed.

No one could explain the loss of five years of his age - or, for that matter, why it seemed to have been time travel to exactly 362 years in the future. (To the second, from what they could tell.) His magical core was that of a sixteen year old (by the time that he reached New Londinium, his birthday had passed), so they taught him as such.

What truly amused him was finding out the history of the family that he lived with on New Londinium. Their last name was MacTavert, but it seemed that about three hundred and forty years earlier, one Dudley Dursley had thrown his wife and daughter out of the house when it was discovered that the young girl was magical. This family had been descendants of that daughter, and had actually petitioned to foster him while on New Londinium, unknowing of the connection during their petition.

Before he'd been there five months, he had reached the point that Hogwarts would have trained him to. He continued to learn, since the magical world had exploded, educationally speaking, since the secrecy statutes had fallen in the early 21st century. He was taught an amusing trick that a handful of magically adept who had joined Starfleet had learned - he learned to tune a phaser so that he could cast some of the spells that current technology still couldn't mimic, turning it into a secondary wand.

* * *

With a number of high level Divination experts nearby, he also finally listened to the prophecy orb. "They were protecting this?" one of them scoffed when they heard "_. . . the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches . . . born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies . . . and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not . . . and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives . . . the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies . . ._"

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"Obviously this referred to you. You have some ability, or knowledge, or _something_, that will allow you to permanently defeat this Dark Lord of yours. It's vague though. It could have been anyone who was born near the end of July -"

"- or possibly September, given that 'Sept-' means seven in Latin -" someone interjected, but received dirty look from the original speaker.

"- July, with parents who defied him in some way. Dumbledore's socks, that could be anyone, since anyone can defy someone, even if the person being defied doesn't know it!" He shook his head. "I assume that your scar is the mark referred to, and this power that he knows not? Could be anything. For all we know, you return to the past and land a shuttlecraft on his chest! I doubt he'd know what one of them is."

"The 'neither can live' section is weird," the interrupter said. "I suspect that they were referring to not being able to get on with your life while you're worrying about a murdering psychopath. Either that or you're an undead with the ability to fool every sensor known to the Federation. I rather suspect that last one as being unlikely," he finished with a grin.

"I hope so," Harry replied, laughing. "So Dumbledore kept this from me without reason, basically?"

"How can you be sure it was Dumbledore?" the first speaker asked.

"'_S.P.T. to A.P.W.B.D._', and on the next line it reads '_Dark Lord and (?)Harry Potter_'. Not sure who the S.P.T. is, although I suspect it might be our Divinations teacher, since that would explain why he hired a fraud for the position. But those five initials can only be Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. So he knew, and never told me. I suspect that he was grooming me for something or other. If I ever return, I'll find out from him."

He was amused by the grilling he received, when it was realised that he had personally known the man who was now invoked even more than Merlin was.

* * *

By the time he left New Londinium with a permanent invitation to consider the MacTavert home as family, he had been awarded certifications in all of his Hogwarts core subjects, and was given hints that he should probably think about going for Masteries in several subjects when he returned to the planet.


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry for the delay - between a visit to the grandkids who live in another state, and getting back to work, I forgot to post this chapter. Hoping to get onto a more regular schedule. (With luck, every Friday. No promises, though.)

* * *

**_Starfleet Academy_**

"You've all had a chance to get used to the controls," the instructor said. "Today's the first time you get to sit in a simulator and try flying a shuttle. The experience will be everything that a real shuttle flight would be, except that it will be significantly harder to get yourself killed. A crash in a real shuttle will tend to kill or cripple you. A crash in these ends the simulation."

Harry slid into his own simulator and smiled. "I've wanted to fly again," he murmured.

"Well, here's your chance," the instructor said into his machine. "Take off when ready."

He did the proper checklist - hull sealed, engines good, and all the rest - and then looked at his flight plan. Smiling, he powered up the shuttle and was airborne. _I'm scared of when they give us a hard one,_ he thought as he 'landed' his simulator. After going through the proper shut down sequence, he exited the simulation, to discover he was the last of his class to exit.

"Damn, it must have been an interesting crash if it took this long to pull you from the simulator," one of his classmates quipped. "Waiting for the smoke to clear?"

Harry was confused. "That was an easy flight. I've done tougher. Why would I have crashed?"

"Bullshit!" another one cried out. "Everyone crashed!"

"Except, it appears, for Cadet Potter," the instructor said, exiting the control room. "Perfect flight, in fact. I'd ask if you had flown one of these before, but this shuttle design is available only to Starfleet, and I know something of your history."

As class was let out, the instructor called to Harry. "Mr Potter? A moment, please." Harry stepped to attention before the instructor, saluting. "At ease. I want you to follow me. A few of our other teachers at Starfleet want to see your abilities, so we're dropping you into another simulation. We'll beam onto a holodeck simulation, and go from there. It will seem as if we have beamed into Starbase 1."

"Yes sir. When do we leave?"

"Right now, if you don't have another class to go to." Harry nodded that he was free. "Excellent. Commander Whitefern to Starfleet Academy - begin simulation."

The two appeared on the platform of what Harry knew the Starbase looked like. "Good simulation, sir. I love holodeck technology."

"It is fun, isn't it?" Whitefern answered with a grin. "Shall we head for a shuttle?" A few minutes later had Harry seated in the pilot's seat of a Starfleet speed shuttle. "You'll find your flight plan in the computer already."

Harry did the checklist once more and then checked the flight plan. "Interesting" he murmured. "Checking my reflexes, I guess." He perused it one more time to commit it to memory before he tapped the comm panel. "Shuttle Gagarin-SB1 to Starbase 1, permission to launch."

"Permission granted, Gagarin. Enjoy your flight."

"Thank you. Launching now. Gagarin out." The shuttle gently lifted and he slid toward the shuttle doors, since opening the giant door that allowed starships to enter and exit was simply ridiculous. Once in open space and en route to where he could enter warp, he looked to Commander Whitefern. "Permission to ask a question, sir?"

"Ask away, and don't worry about asking during this flight. If you've got something to say, then say it."

"Thank you, sir. Is real space as beautiful as this simulation makes it seem? Does . . . when I look down on Earth for real for the first time, am I going to feel as awe-filled as I do right now?"

"Son, I can honestly say that the feeling of awe has never gone away for me, and I've been in Starfleet since I was sixteen."

"Good, because I can't say that I'd be happy with looking at that and thinking 'Ho hum', y'know? Uh, sir?"

"I know exactly what you mean."

Harry looked down at his panels. "Might want to hold on, sir. If this flight plan is correct, then we're in for a bumpy ride." With that, he punched the controls, and they shot into warp for a few seconds, coming out above Jupiter. "Merlin's balls," Harry breathed. "It's amazing." He shook his head and scowled, not noticing the Commander's amused smile at his epithet.

Harry's flight was amazing for both of them. He rocketed around moons in a tight pattern, once avoiding one of the gigantic lightning bolts that jumps from planet to inner moons. He exploded up from the gravity well of the gigantic body and shot toward the asteroid belt. He entered it at speed, noting the Commander's slightly worried look, but the flight plan called for a specific speed. He was to fly through the entire width at the highest speed he could manage. At the speeds he was travelling, the likelihood of collision was much higher than usual, but he avoided the heavenly bodies as if they weren't there.

Shooting out the other side, he brought the ship to a stop, as the flight plan called for. "How did I do, Commander?"

Commander Whitefern's eyebrows were near his hairline. "I've only ever seen one other person fly that well, Cadet, and he wasn't a first year student when he did it. I think we'll check on a few other things, but you're likely getting a free pass from most of the flying classes. Bring us home."

"Yes sir." Harry tapped a few buttons and opened the comm link. "Shuttle Gagarin-SB1 to Starbase, requesting permission to approach and land."

"Come on in, Gagarin. Good flying, by the way."

"Thank you. Gagarin out." He brought the ship into warp and back out again, some distance away from the base.

"Interesting. Most students try to reappear as close to Starbase 1 as they can, but you came out of warp some four hundred thousand kilometres away. Why is that?"

"Begging your pardon, sir, but it's kinda dumb to come out of warp that close if you don't have a clear picture of exactly what's nearby. If I knew for a fact that the area was completely clear, I could probably have dropped us right on their doorstep."

Once they had landed, the Commander turned to him. "That is one of the smoothest landings I've ever felt, son. I didn't realise we'd landed until I heard you shutting the ship down."

"I look forward to flying one of these shuttles for real."

Commander Whitefern grinned at him. "Care to end the simulation?"

"Computer, end program." Nothing happened. "Uh, sir? I don' think I have proper permissions to end the program."

"What error message did the computer give you?"

"None, sir."

"Think about it, son. Follow me while you think." Harry followed while he thought about what the Commander had said. _I should have gotten an error message, something like 'You do not have authorisation to end this program' or something like that. That means -_

Harry realised what that meant as he entered the room where several other Starfleet personnel sat. They rose to their feet and started clapping. "How'd it feel to fly a shuttle for the first time?" Admiral Jaaymeson asked.

"Amazing, even if I didn't know I was doing it."

"He's the best flier I've seen since Paris went through here. Probably in Admiral Sulu's league," Whitefern said.

"High praise indeed!" He looked to Harry. "Sulu was the only navigator ever to perform what he called a 'Bootlegger's Reverse' in a starship. I've got no idea what a bootlegger was, but that is one of the most amazing moves I've ever seen - and I can only see it in recordings, because anyone who tried it since then ended up damaging their ship."

"Does the current design of the ships allow for such a thing?" Harry asked. "It could be that the technology was better suited for it during his time. And if I may, sir, what _is_ a 'Bootlegger's Reverse' manoeuvre?"

"You basically spin the ship on its axis and return in the direction you came. The thing is, you're still accelerating when you do it. None of this stopping and spin - you stress the hull like mad to do it."

"Sounds similar to a Wronski Feint," he mused. At the amused looks he got from the teachers in the room, he explained. "It was largely used to plough a fellow Seeker into the turf. You'd head down at the ground at top speed and pull up at the last possible second. My feet tended to brush the grass, to be honest."

"Given that I could probably have touched one of those asteroids we manoeuvred around, I can believe it," Whitefern said with a laugh.

* * *

**_Enterprise_**

Ensign Potter touched the chime to the Counsellor's quarters. "Come in, Ensign," came the melodic voice of Deanna Troi.

"Well, I'm here," he said with a small smile. "I'll admit that I'm not used to talking about my feelings with anyone."

"If it works for you - which it seems to have so far," she said, "then it's not really a problem. I've noticed that you've spent a lot of time on the holodeck with a program you named Hogwarts? Is that part of how you do stress relief?"

He blushed slightly. "I built it so that I could see my friends again. I know I return to my original time at some point - Admiral Jaaymeson told me so shortly after I arrived - but I don't know when I'll return. There's some ugly crap showing up just after I disappeared, and it spilled into the non-magical world. I don't expect that any of my closest friends will be alive when I return."

"Why not? They must be fairly well skilled. The six of you took on a dozen well trained adults."

"I expect that was more that they were startled and the fact that the Death Eaters are used to people just rolling over and dying while screaming for mercy from the inhuman dogs who don't know the meaning of the word."

"My usual response here would be something inane like 'You don't sound happy with them,' but that much is obvious. What makes these . . . 'Death Eaters' be like this?"

"Ever study the period I'm from? The period before me, actually, called the Second World War. Adolf Hitler and his policies and beliefs? Same sort of idiots. If you weren't a 'pureblood' wizard, then you weren't really worthy of living. My friend Hermione was called a 'Mudblood' by the son of one of the 'scions' of the wizarding world."

Deanna winced. "I don't have to have grown up in your wizarding world to hear that as an insult. 'Dirty blood.'"

"The funny thing is, they were being run by a man - well, thing, after that ritual - who was exactly the type of person that they were sent out to kill. His mother had a relationship with a non-magical man, who left as soon as he discovered that she was a witch. Don't know the full story, so I won't judge a dead man."

"Let's get back to your friends. You mentioned a 'Hermione' by name, and just now you blushed slightly."

He thought for a moment. "Maybe it would be easier if we went to a holodeck and I showed you my friends as I saw them. You'd probably glean more about my thoughts from seeing that than you would from simply hearing me talk about them."

"Agreed. Computer, what is the nearest available holodeck?"

"The nearest available holodeck is Holodeck 6."

"Mark it as in use by the ships' Counsellor, and prepare to run program -" She turned and faced Harry.

"- Hogwarts 1."

"- Hogwarts 1." When the computer acknowledged her, she gave full attention to Harry again. "Why that specific one?"

"It's easiest to get you introduced to everyone, to be honest. It's the parts of the school that I know - and that's a lot of it - and it contains the people that I know, and some who look like their counterparts, but I've no idea of their personalities." He grimaced. "And a couple I'm sure that I made worse than they really are."

"Perhaps not. You seem honest about your leanings regarding these people, so the computer has likely lessened their worst tendencies that you had originally programmed in, which would likely bring them greater in line with who they truly are."

"Possibly. One thing, though - they'll see us as being their age." She simply nodded.

The doors to Holodeck 6 opened to show a beautiful sunny day. "Begin program," Harry said once the doors had closed.

"Harry!" Ron called, running toward him with Hermione and Ginny in hot pursuit. "Where've you been?"

"Dumbledore gave me permission to go into Hogsmeade to meet a student who's thinking of coming here. Guys, meet Deanna Troi. Miss Troi, meet Ron Weasley, a huge Quidditch fan and Keeper on the Gryffindor team. His sister Ginny, the _cute_ redhead of the two, plays Seeker for now, and isn't as much as a nut about the game as Ron is. The brunette who's nearly vibrating into another dimension waiting for the chance to ask you questions about where you went to school is Hermione Granger."

"Computer, freeze program," Deanna said. "A possible student? What's Quidditch?"

"Actually, if you mention that you went to Salem Academy and don't know Quidditch or care about Quodpot, Ron will largely leave you alone about it. As for Hermione? Just tell her that Salem really follows the same kind of curriculum that Hogwarts offers."

"Begin program."

They spent a pleasant amount of time in the Holodeck getting to know the holo-versions of his friends. When they left and returned to her office, she smiled. "How long have you been in love with Hermione Granger?"

He looked more than a little startled. "I wasn't aware that . . . then again, she's the one that I find that I'll miss most about the past. What made you say that, though?"

"I was watching how her avatar reacted to how close to you I was hanging. You didn't consciously program her to glare at other girls who get close to you?"

"Definitely not consciously." He shook his head. "Definitely wishful thinking, though. She's with Ron, if they finally got past their odd method of flirting."

She looked at him for a long moment. "I'll understand if you choose not to answer, but . . . have you ever made any programs that were of a more . . . intimate nature?"

He laughed even as he blushed. "Actually, yeah. But would you believe that I couldn't go through with it? I couldn't run those programs, because - it's not like they'd ever know - but I can't get past the thought that it would disrespect the lady in question."

Deanna had a soft smile. "Might this lady have had bushy brown hair?"

He grinned. "I refuse to answer on the grounds that it's probably pretty damned obvious." She laughed in response, but frowned as she felt his mood change. "It doesn't matter anyway. She and her family were killed - no bodies ever found - after an explosion that rocked Oxford. She lived in Oxford."

"No bodies were found? Maybe she survived and slid permanently into your wizarding world before the wall between them fell permanently."

"I doubt it. Hers was one of far too many where they said 'no bodies found'. The blast apparently vaporised a good part of Oxford, completely annihilating the campus of the university. Thousands died. It's not like the Enterprise jumped back in time to save their lives. When I learned that about Hermione, I mourned her and moved on."

"Yet you've had no girlfriends."

"Given my physical age, who am I going to date? Most of the people my age are cadets at the Academy. I'm mentally about twenty-six, even if the body is about twenty or twenty-one."

"To be honest, you don't let people get too close to you."

"Because I lose friends. My first friends are lost in time, and any of the friends I made at the Academy are scattered throughout the fleet by now. When am I going to see them again? Best to stay lonely. I've spent the majority of my life that way, so I'm used to it."

"A very lonely life."

"If I'm going back to the twentieth century to deal with Voldemort, then also likely to be a short one." At her raised eyebrow, he continued. "I have every intention of living a long life. I am not going to throw my life away recklessly. However, I suspect it will be short." He smiled wryly. "Another reason for not getting overly involved with girls. I don't want to leave behind someone with more of a reason to mourn than others have."

She shook her head. "You are probably the most optimistic fatalist I have ever met."

"Helps when you know something of your future. I'll be returning to my original time someday. Best not get too connected here or make too many friends to leave behind."

"Too late," she replied with a smile.


	3. Chapter 3

How about I publish the ACTUAL Chapter three - not the much later chapter that I'M STILL EDITING?! Gah!

* * *

**Voyager - Year 1**

Lieutenant Harry Potter chimed the captain's doorbell as soon as he was at her ready room. He'd just gotten on board and dropped all his things in his quarters and had headed to her as soon as he'd gotten the message requesting he see her soonest. _Janeway's supposed to be a good captain. I look forward to serving on Voyager._

The door opened to show him a striking woman. "Welcome aboard, Lieutenant. Glad to have you here."

"Thank you, Captain. I'm glad to be here."

"Now that you're here, Lieutenant, I need to call Admiral Jaaymeson. Apparently you being on this ship allows certain clearances to be relaxed. Do you have any idea what this might be about?"

"Yes, Captain, but I'd rather not say until the Admiral either confirms or denies my suspicion."

"Good thinking. You'll go far with an attitude like that. Computer, connect me with Admiral Jaaymeson and put him on my large screen."

A moment later, the familiar face of a Weasley descendant appeared on the screen, but not before the computer asked Janeway to authorise a secure connection. "Ah, Katherine, I was waiting for this call. Lt Potter. Good to see you on board the Voyager. You're there for a reason."

"Sir?" he asked, more than a little confused.

"I have some pictures for you, which is why I insisted on the secure connection. Note that this first one was taken during the spring of 1998, by a Colin Creevey."

Harry stiffened at that, and nearly fainted when he saw the picture of himself in a Starfleet uniform, Looking roughly the age he was right now, standing on the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch. Hermione Granger stood next to him, his arm around her shoulder in a _very_ friendly manner. Behind them was a shuttle.

"Nobody had ever located this picture before, but when you arrived, we did a system-wide search, and found this in a private database. Once we checked that picture out, we extended the search and found the following in what was, for the day, a highly secure governmental database. Why the data was still around, we don't know."

The picture that came up was Voyager in orbit around Earth, with two other ships of apparent Federation design near her. One of them appeared to be the ship he was standing in front of in the first picture. The other was unknown. The ship from the Hogwarts picture, as Harry was already thinking of it, appeared to be powering up weapons. The photo appeared to have been taken by an orbiting satellite, which Harry found strange, but didn't question.

"This picture came to us while the Intrepid class was still on the drawing board, to use a twentieth century colloquialism. The time stamp is roughly concurrent with when you are photographed with your arm around that attractive young lady."

* * *

"Well, isn't this a fine mess," Harry Potter said as he looked out over the remains of the Caretaker's array.

"You have made an enemy this day," the Kazon Maj declared to the captain. Harry kept himself silent rather than snark the way he would have liked to.

As the screen went back to the view of space, Captain Janeway asked, "I recognise that tilt of your head, Lieutenant. You have something to say?"

"Mere snark at the Maj, Captain, nothing more."

"We could all use a laugh right now. Let's hear it."

"It wasn't really all that funny, but I was basically thinking something along the lines of him saying 'I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blo-o-o-o-ow your house down!' That's all." He heard soft snickering amongst the people on the bridge, including from the captain.

"Yes, well, I'm pleased that you have the ability to censor yourself when necessary," she said, the amusement plain in her voice.

"I'd have been dead at twelve if I couldn't," he replied. "The first time through twelve, that is."

"Let's get underway for the Alpha Quadrant, and then I'd like a meeting in my ready room with all upper staff of both Starfleet and the Maquis. Mr Paris, I'll want you there as well."

"Yes Captain," Paris said, a mild mocking tone to his voice.

A few minutes later, Harry found himself at a table with Chakotay, Commander Tuvok, B'Elanna Torres, Tom Paris, Captain Janeway, and someone named Seska who put his teeth on edge. "We need to integrate the crews," Janeway said. "Suggestions? And as long as we keep the profanity down, you have permission to speak freely."

There was a moment of silence before Harry shrugged and said, "Personally, if you don't have your heart set on Commander Tuvok as your Number One, I'd suggest Mr Chakotay."

"Explain," Tuvok said.

"Simple. Half of our crew is Maquis now, by simple requirement that we need them to survive, and vice versa. What better way to integrate them than by having a man known for his command skills take the job. As long as Captain Janeway listens to him, that should quell a lot of arguments."

"It will not stop them all, Lieutenant."

"I know that, sir. But if the captain is seen relying on one of the Maquis for advice and guidance, it should help. Some will say that he's gone to the other side. That's always going to happen. You'll never get one hundred percent support."

"You sound as if you have some knowledge of that," Tom Paris said.

Harry snorted. "Intimate knowledge, unfortunately. Part of the crap that threw me forward into the twenty-fourth century. That's not relevant, though, Mr Paris."

"Since you seem to be on a roll, Lieutenant, any further suggestions?" Captain Janeway asked. "I see the influence of Jean Luc in your reference to my first officer."

"Sorry 'bout that. Habit. Chances are, you're going to need good pilots in the next two to three years. I'd recommend that you make Mr Paris's commission a real one and put the two of us in charge of training up new helmsmen. You grabbed him as a backup to me, rather than have me on pilot duty 24/7. Make that official."

"You're trusting our lives to _him_?" Chakotay asked with a growl.

"According to the place I came from, I'm a highly disturbed attention seeking boy who makes up stories to scare people rather than a crack pilot. Personally, I think Starfleet screwed up big time when they kicked Paris out. He might be a different man today if they'd punished him properly, rather than drumming him out for doing the right thing. Drum him back to cadet and make him work his way up again or something. I suspect it was his father that pushed for the expulsion, though." He shook his head. "I respect your ability to lead, sir, but I am not going to judge Tom Paris based on what everyone else says I should. I'm going to judge him on our interactions. You may hate him for his Starfleet problems, and then for betraying you. What are you going to do if oh … say … Seska betrays you and us?" He looked to the woman who bothered him. "Not saying you will, by the way. Just an example."

"I understand," she said in a tone that seemed to echo her words. For some reason, that put Harry even more on edge.

"My point is that not everyone has the same purpose for being in the Maquis. He was looking for a job. You were looking for patriots. I understand both sides. But you hired him for his ability to fly, did you not?"

"Don't take that tone with me, Starfleet," Chakotay warned.

"Yes, yes, I understand that yours are bigger and made from duranium. Doesn't answer the question, and in the long run, unless you mutiny, you don't make the decision. We need to work together. Unless you've got a more kick-ass pilot than Tom still alive, we need him to help train up the next group of pilots."

"If I might ask," Seska asked with a confused look, "what were you referring to when you said that they were bigger and made of duranium?"

The others around the table chuckled, save a blushing Harry and a scowling Chakotay. "Sorry. I was being a bit crude."

B'Elanna jumped in. "Starfleet there was chopping Chakotay off at the knees in a dick-waving contest, saying that Chakotay was acting like his testicles are made of duranium." Seska looked confused for a moment more as she assimilated the knowledge and then laughed.

Harry turned to Chakotay. "I really do understand where you're coming from with the Maquis. I was part of an underground group in my original time. We were fighting an insane man who wanted to rule the world and kill anyone he didn't consider 'pure'. I was on what our government considered 'the wrong side'. Sound familiar?"

"We're not going to be buddy-buddy," Chakotay growled. It was clear that he understood the message Harry was trying to get across, and was having none of it.

"I doubt we'll ever get past saying hello to each other in a civil tone, to be honest, but we're going to have to work together if we want to get home. Right now, it looks like about seventy years worth of travel will get us there. None of the Federation's starships have ever survived that long. We _need_ each other if we're ever going to get home. Snarking isn't gonna cut it. We'll need Ms Torres in Engineering, for example."

He smiled at her. "The last person I heard of that could make an engine do what you do was a Montgomery Scott, if even _half_ of what I've heard about him was true. We'll need that kind of 'on the fly' kind of work, I'm betting."

He suddenly blushed again. "Sorry, Captain. Getting a little too into my subject."

"You make some excellent suggestions. I will come back to you all later as my decision is made."

* * *

"I'll go to the brig for as long as you want, Captain, but I stand by my decision to shoot to kill with Seska. She was working with the Kazon, and shooting her before she could transport out to be with them may have saved us a lot of heartache in the future." Harry said to Captain Janeway as he was being debriefed in the captain's ready room. Chakotay and Tuvok were there as well, as was Tom Paris.

"I'm a little worried that you're too quick to shoot to kill. We prefer to leave our opponents alive," she replied. She was sharp in her tone, but didn't seem too angry.

"Permission to speak freely, Captain?" he asked. When she nodded, he began. "When I came from, I was seeing something very similar from my Headmaster at my school. The problem with being gentle with them in such a manner is that they see us as soft. Ask B'Elanna about how the Klingons would see such a manoeuvre. Remember what started the intense contempt that the Klingon's held us in? We let them go after defeating them. To them, you enslave a race you defeat. Where I came from, giving the Death Eaters a second chance taught them that there were no real consequences. The battle I was in that shot me forward was similar - we did non-lethal things to them and were continually fighting them, because they'd get up and come right back at us. I guarantee that Seska won't be coming back to cause us any further trouble, and if we give the Kazon her body, they might think twice about continuing to harass us." He sighed. "Look, I'm not happy about killing. I don't like it, but this incident should teach a lesson." He shook his head. "If it _had_ been Carey, I'd have done the same thing, so Maquis/Starfleet doesn't enter into it."

"I'm not so sure about that, _Lieutenant_," Chakotay said sharply. "You've never liked Seska. You could just as easily have been using your position to deal with her permanently."

"The _Commander_ outranks me and is within his rights to have me confined to the brig, am I correct, Captain?"

"Technically, you are correct, but I would prefer to keep you out of the brig."

"Ah, but Commander Chakotay would rather keep the slavering monster away from his Maquis. I might find an excuse to heinously murder more of them."

"Are you attempting to get me to throw you in the brig, Lieutenant?" Janeway asked.

"Not really, but it's a talk you're going to have to have with him. Right now, your two best pilots are people that he detests with a passion. If he has his way, I will be tried for the _murder_ of . . . whatever she was to him."

Chakotay growled. "She was one of our crew."

"Was she? If I hadn't stopped her, she was going to head to the Kazon ship with a large amount of knowledge of Federation technology. Sounds to me like she was willing to give up everybody for her own comfort. Not someone I'd describe as 'one of us'."

* * *

"Mr Neelix?"

"Oh, just call me Neelix, Lieutenant!" the cheerful alien said to Harry. "What can I help you with? Perhaps some coffee?"

"Not right now, but you've managed to get right to the heart of why I wanted to speak to you. I'm doing this on my own time, and without the knowledge of the captain. In my time, they might have said, 'The views expressed are not necessarily those of the management.'"

"Is something wrong?" If anything, Neelix was mercurial. He had gone from quite cheerful to overly worried.

"It's in regards to your cooking," Harry said. "I'm going to be harsh, and then offer you a solution."

"If it helps, I'm all ears, I think your saying is," Neelix said, now extremely intent on what Harry was about to say.

"To be blunt, Mr Neelix, from the point of view of humans, which comprise the majority of the crew, your cooking is not as edible as we would like." He held up a hand to forestall Neelix's comment, which was about to come from an opening mouth. "I think that the problem is coming from the fact that your taste senses are different from ours. You find it delicious, correct?" Neelix nodded. "Exactly. Both sides are at fault here, and I'm willing to help you in my off hours. I have cooked for humans before, and I can help you make things to human tastes."

"I'm sorry that the crew doesn't like my cooking. I have tried."

"I know, and they do too. They haven't wanted to hurt your feelings, because they like you. So do I. But . . . well, sometimes you have to cause a little pain to make things better for everyone."

"Like when my uncle had to his squidules operated on!" Neelix exclaimed. "Cheered him right up after that, but it certainly wasn't anything he or anyone else wanted to go through." He looked conspiratorially at Harry, as if Neelix's uncle might overhear. "The rest of us were pretty happy about the change in him too."

_I will not ask what a squidule is, I will not ask what a squidule is . . . _"When is a good time for me to begin helping you learn how to cook for humans? In return, I promise to see if I can learn how to cook for you, so that you don't always have to cook for yourself."

* * *

"My compliments to the chef, Neelix!" Tom Paris said. "This stew is delicious!"

"Thank your Mr Potter for that. He took me aside and explained about human taste buds. I appreciate that you didn't want to hurt my feelings, but . . . well, I would have changed sooner if I'd known.

"We're sorry for that, Mr Neelix," Captain Janeway said to him. "We're still so new to integrating everyone into one crew that we simply didn't wish to offend someone who was going out of his way to help us when he didn't have to."

"So did Lt Potter cook this?" Harry Kim asked.

The doors opened right then. "Did I make what?" He took a deep breath. "I was right! Leola root made a great counterpoint to the sweetness of the charmek leaves." He grabbed a plate of the stew and sat down in his usual place, away from the others and alone.

Harry Kim scowled for a moment as he watched everyone slowly return to their meals. He'd seen the entire exchange, and it bothered him. Potter seemed able to handle the duties, but also seemed very alone. He suddenly stood, plate in hand, and strode away from the table that Tom Paris was sitting at. "Mind if I join you, Lieutenant?"

"Sure you want to be seen with 'Wonder Boy Potter'?" Potter asked. "At least, that's what they've been snidely calling me since the Academy."

"I'm not going to be sitting with 'Wonder Boy Potter'. I hope to sit with someone who might be a friend some day." He knew he'd made the right decision when he saw a real smile cross the Lieutenant's face.


	4. Chapter 4

Went back and edited the previous chapters. Added section breaks to all the chapters, and tossed in a small line about why Harry was called "Wonder Boy Potter'. You don't need to reread the chapters, but I thought a head's-up was good.

* * *

**Voyager - Year 2**

Potter and Chakotay had been stranded on a barely habitable moon for several days, and it had been a trying time for both of them - so much so that when they returned to the ship, Lt Potter turned himself into Captain Janeway for insubordination.

Chakotay talked to Janeway in her ready room after Potter had been sentenced to the brig. "Actually, I think that you should either negate his brig time completely, or lessen it dramatically. I've been riding him since we got stranded in this quadrant for something that I've come to realise he was right about - Seska. I'll tell him that as well. But it was the very offence he insisted on being sent to the brig for - insubordination - that got my head out of my ass, to be blunt about it."

"But he was insubordinate, by both his testimony and yours."

"What if that insubordination was specifically to cause the superior officer in question think about the reasons for his dislike of the insubordinate officer?"

"I suppose we'll have to ask the Lieutenant his intentions, then," Janeway said with a smile. She and Chakotay headed toward the brig.

As soon as they entered the brig, Lt Potter was on his feet and standing at attention. "Captain." he said.

"At ease, Lieutenant," she said. "You're in the brig."

"But I'm still an officer. I need to keep discipline, or else I'll develop bad habits that will need to be removed once I'm released. Something I should have remembered down on the planet."

"So you were insubordinate? You were not trying to shake Commander Chakotay from his dislike of you?"

"Depends on how you mean it, Captain. I was angry at him, and said things to him in a nasty manner. That was the insubordination. I was, however, hoping to shake him up just enough to get us to be able to work together until you got Voyager back to us."

"Which was the decider, in your opinion?" Janeway asked.

"A mixture. I was angry, as I said, but I needed his help. Call it fifty-fifty. Either way, I earned my sentence by not keeping my temper. There should have been a better way to get his attention."

"I admire your candour," Janeway said. "I also listen to recommendations from my first officer. That said, I am lowering your sentence to one week instead of a month, based on a recommendation from Commander Chakotay."

The captain found herself mildly amused by Lt Potter's frown. "Permission to speak freely, Captain?" he asked, to which she nodded. "What lesson does that teach if you do that? Have a really good excuse before you break the rules? I respectfully request that you reconsider lessening my sentence."

"I'll take that under advisement for next time, Lieutenant. For the moment, consider that you have one hundred and sixty-seven more hours in here. I will notify you if I take your recommendation and return you to the full month." Lt Potter nodded and then saluted. "At ease," she said with a small laugh.

She walked to the door and then stopped. "And in answer to the question you asked, I would have to say 'yes'. We don't want mindless drones here. The rules are not inflexible. They can't answer all questions. So yes, having a really good excuse before breaking the rules is a good thing. You just might be able to avoid punishment."

"I expect I'll see you in a week," Chakotay said as Janeway left. "At which point I will be apologising properly to you for my attitude."

"Then maybe my brig time is worth it, if I might end up with a new friend," Harry said.

* * *

"I must say that you impressed me with your insistence on doing brig time," Chakotay said.

"You might not be so happy or apologetic when you hear why I did it," was the response. At Chakotay's intrigued look, Potter continued. "First off, I wanted the other Starfleet people to think on some of the plans I've heard around the ship - the crews still aren't blended perfectly. Ever hear the phrase 'Don't do the crime if you can't do the time'? Yeah, I was angry at you, and went over the line, but I was pretty sure that I'd finally shock you out of your dislike of me and turn back into the guy that the Starfleet records said that you were."

"Good thinking," Chakotay said with a laugh. "That doesn't sound like all of your reasoning, though."

"It wasn't," Potter said. He pulled his wand from his sleeve and cast something. "Just to make sure we're not overheard. I've tuned it so that the ships sensors won't get through it either. But the other reason is simple. Have you heard the conversations around the ship? The people you led in the Maquis are actually starting to warm up to the Starfleet crew. They saw that the Captain is willing to throw one of her own people in the brig for talking back to one of the Maquis. That's helping to tear down the walls between our crews. Hell, spending a month in the brig would have been worth it if it meant that the Maquis and the Starfleet crews get friendlier with each other."

He dropped the spell while Chakotay thought. Suddenly, the man threw his head back and laughed. "You're all right, Mr Potter. I like the way you think."

"Thank you. Maybe we can pass each other in the hall now and not growl," was the reply, punctuated with a grin.

"Probably." After a short pause, Chakotay added, "But they're still bigger and made of duranium."

It was Potter's turn to laugh outrageously. When he caught his breath, he said, "The better I get to know you, the more I believe that."

* * *

"Mr Paris," Harry asked in a weary voice. "Can we just once go through one of these without the snide tone? It's nothing I can write you up for, or even want to, but I'm tired today, and don't want to say something I'll regret later."

"Nobody else seems to regret the nasty stuff they've said about me," Paris replied from the other console.

"They will, I'm sure of that. The worthwhile ones will actually apologise."

Paris raised his eyebrows at that. "Look," Harry continued, "I always thought you got a raw deal. Yeah, you shouldn't have covered it up, but you came forward and admitted it. So instead of busting you back down as far as possible or even forcing you through another year at the Academy, they drum you out. That teaches every other person paying attention that they should stick with the lies, rather than be honest. Nice to know you can trust all the newer officer cadets, right?"

"Like you?" Paris asked.

Harry blinked for a moment. He snorted once and then threw his head back and laughed. "Got me with that one! You're absolutely right, Mr Paris. I stay honest because I want someone to be proud of me."

"Anyone specific, or is it a generic thing?" The tone wasn't quite so mocking this time.

"Girl I knew back when," he said.

"Uh-oh, girlfriend stories."

"She wasn't my girlfriend, but she was one of my best friends. She'd be disappointed in me if I lied and cheated my way to a position of power. That would make me no better than the … psychopath we were fighting."

"Sounds like someone was editing himself," Tom said with a small grin.

"Good idea to, to make sure I don't slip in front of someone like, say, Captain Janeway, who can put my arse in the brig."

Tom laughed "Is this psycopath thing you're talking about from your time in the past?" he asked.

"Yeah. I'm actually getting a little nervous, because the pictures I saw from that time that show I returned home should have happened by now."

"Oh?" There was real interest in Tom's voice now.

"Yeah. There's a photo of me with my arm around her shoulder and an odd looking shuttle behind us. We don't have one like that right now - maybe you'd want to design it?" Harry asked with an impudent grin.

"You'd let me design a shuttle?" Tom asked in surprise.

"Why the hell not? You and I both love to fly, so we've both got ideas of the kind of things we'd like to fly." He snorted. "Just wait till we're on Earth in my time. I'll show you flying on a broom."

Tom Paris's eyebrows rose to his hairline, or tried to. "A broom? You're kidding me."

Harry pulled his wand and cast Lumos. "Nope. Remember, I'm one of those people that apparently led to the invention of some of the tech we use now. Not personally, but the fact that we can do things like Apparate and Floo and such led to those who can't cast magic trying to figure out ways to imitate them. In a number of cases, they improved the idea."

Paris was nodding. "Interesting. Not something commonly mentioned in the history lessons."

"Who wants to admit that they came up with a great idea because someone else thought of it first?" Harry replied.

"Good point." Tom looked over at Harry. "I'll be magnanimous and let you take credit for the new shuttle design when I invent it." The impudence was back, but there was a tone of humour that didn't have the snark to it now.

"I appreciate that, Mr Paris," Harry replied with a laugh. "I'll see if I can remember your name when it comes to the acceptance speeches," he added in a haughty tone.

The laughter that greeted the next shift surprised everyone.

* * *

"Lieutenant, you amaze me," the Doctor said. "You may be the only person in Starfleet who willingly comes to me for their yearly check-up."

"In my past, I learned that the doctors always win that argument, so why fight it?" Harry said with a smile. "Besides, unless you discover that I've got a terminal case of the creeping crud, it's not that much of a problem."

"No sign of crud, creeping or otherwise, Mr Potter, although your right shoulder worries me slightly. The connective tissues seem a little loose. As for your attitude in regards to doctors, you're right. We always win." he smiled. "If only I could convince Captain Janeway of that. She fights her check-up like everyone else seems to."

"Maybe we can talk to the Chief Engineer. She seems to have some ability with things like that. There's got to be a way to give you access to the rest of the ship. What happens if you can't have a patient moved, but they don't conveniently fall over on you here in Sickbay?"

"Finally, someone understands!" the Doctor said.

"Considering the number of times I ended up in the infirmary at my school? Magic can keep someone immobile, which helps, but the school's Healer was kept on her toes."

"I would love to meet this person and compare notes someday."

"With luck, and if B'Elanna can come up with something, you will. I expect any day now we'll be bouncing back to Earth in one way or another."


	5. Chapter 5

I'm rather amused by some of the comments I'm getting about Chakotay. He might never have been my favorite character, but I'm making him likable, which some people thought impossible? (By the way, for those who know the origins of this story idea, they'll know why a Chakotay/Seven of Nine pairing is impossible. *grin*)

* * *

_**Voyager - Year 3**_

"How goes it on the Delta Flyer?" Harry asked into the apparently empty room. If not for the noise coming from the shell of the shuttle, he'd have assumed that the shuttle bay was empty. Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres popped their heads up out of the shell of the section they were in, making him snicker to himself, because they looked as if they had just been caught snogging, based on the surprised looks on their faces.

She spoke first. "We finally settled on tetraburnium for the Flyer's external skin, because it should give us the best ratio of weight and strength. Light enough to be useful, but tough enough to need Voyager's phasers to pierce."

"That's some of the hull material we've already got, right?" Harry asked.

"We're going to need it if we want this shuttle to stand up to things, Starfleet!" she barked at him.

He raised his hands. "I was just asking." He intentionally put on an over-the-top Lockhart attitude. "Remember, I might come across as this confident - and dare I say handsome? - Starfleet officer, but I'm still merely a ruggedly handsome 20th century human who got shunted forward." He posed dramatically, and wished he knew the spell that Lockhart had used to give his teeth that special shine.

She was the one to snicker this time. "I'm sorry for snapping at you. I'm still fighting with myself and wondering how the Maquis are doing."

"It's probably sacrilege for a Starfleet officer to say this, but I hope they're all right. I've read up on the conflict - I didn't live through a lot of what led to it, remember - and I probably would have been fighting alongside you. I'm used to having a government you thought you could trust turning on you." He sneered, but it was clear that it was not at either of them. "You were lucky. 'Maquis' were the foe for your government. Mine wanted _me_ in prison or expelled from our wizarding world." He paused. "Ought to be interesting to see if Voldie has made a public appearance since I've been gone."

He shook his head. "That's neither here nor there. My real question is one of simple curiosity. How long before I get the second flight?"

"Second?" Tom Paris asked. "I'd figure as senior pilot on board, you'd likely get the right to fly her first."

"Yeah, but which one of us is going to know her inside and out, Tom? Who's going to know all her little quirks from having had the chance to run all the simulations, and will be better equipped to recover from them if needed?"

"You'd actually let me get the first flight?"

"I've already talked to Captain Janeway about it," he said. "Gave her just that reasoning as to why you should fly the Delta Flyer's maiden voyage."

"Why?" B'Elanna asked bluntly.

Harry thought for a long moment. "Can you guys take a break from this for a few minutes? The best way to explain a lot about me is to show you something."

Their eyes met and they appeared to talk with just their eyes. Simultaneously, they stood and brushed dust from their uniforms. "Lead on, MacDuff," Tom said.

"'Lay on, MacDuff, and damned be he who cries 'Nay, enough!''" Harry said, raising his hand into the air as he turned to leave. He heard a distinctly female snort of laughter behind him.

* * *

He led them to an empty holodeck, and pulled out an isolinear chip once the doors closed. A moment later, the scene changed to a Scottish countryside. "Computer, open picture Shuttle One in front of us." A moment later, the photograph that he had been shown when he was posted to Voyager appeared in the air before them.

"Damn, that's the Delta Flyer!" Tom said. "And pardon my saying it, but that's quite the babe you've got your arm around there."

"Pity she won't survive much past the photography on that picture. She and her parents, along with several thousand others, are vaporised on August 1, 1998, in Oxford."

B'Elanna surprised him by walking over and hugging him quickly. "Losing people you care for hurts. I'm sorry."

"I'll get to see her one last time, though," Harry said with a sad smile. "That photo proves it, since I'm in my Starfleet uniform." He turned to the two of them. "And that photo explains one more thing. I need to return to the 20th century, and I need Voyager to do it. If it were the Maquis who could have gotten me back to my right time, then I'd have joined them. I am a good little Starfleet drone because I need Starfleet to get me back. After I go back and kill Voldemort, I'm through. I'll visit her headstone - she'll have one because I'll pay for one - and then join her."

"Do you really think she'd want you to do that?" B'Elanna asked.

"No, she'd tell me to live. Why? It's bad enough that it took me 'til the 24th century to realise that I'd fallen in love with her somewhere along the way, but to know that she won't survive long after I finally see her again?" He shook his head. "'You'll find someone else,' they always say. I'm not so sure that's true. It makes the first one seem like she can be replaced."

"You need to tell her when you get back, you know," Tom said. "That you love her, I mean. The other is a bad idea."

"No, she's with my other best friend. That would just make her feel bad."

B'Elanna looked long and hard at the photograph hovering before them. "Computer, focus in on this section." She motioned with her hand around Harry's posterior.

"Checking out Harry's butt, B'Elanna?" Tom asked with amusement.

She ignored him as the computer enlarged that area. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Harry, but that looks like her hand on your butt there. And the way her fingers are, I'd say she's got a good grip on it. She ever do that to you before?"

"Uh, no," Harry replied, stunned.

"So," Tom said with a grin, "looks like you might be wanting a conversation with her anyway?"

"Looks like she'd die knowing you returned the feeling," B'Elanna said. "Sounds worthwhile to me."

* * *

"Oh-ho, look where you primates have gotten to now," said an amused voice that the crew of the Voyager had only ever heard in recordings from the Enterprise.

"Can I shoot him, Captain?" Harry Potter asked with annoyance.

"I welcome the attempt," Q said. "It would be trés amusing."

"Well, he did offer you the chance, Lieutenant. Are you ready for the consequences?"

"Couldn't be worse than listening to this git prattle on with his superiority talk." His wand shot from his sleeve and he yelled "_Stupefy!_"

To everyone's surprise - especially Harry's - the nigh-omnipotent being fell over backwards to the deck with a thud.

He was back on his feet a few moments later, staring at Harry. He then spun on Janeway. "Why didn't anyone tell me that you're a precursor race?"

"Maybe because it's none of your business?" Harry shot at him.

"Excuse moi," Q said loftily, "but precursors are the business of the Q Continuum. We must guide those races capable of transcending mortality into becoming proper examples of what it means to be omnipotent."

Harry was sitting at his console with a sour lemon look, flapping his fingers as if to imitate Q's talking. "Heard it before, shorty. Didn't like those jerks either."

"Wherever would you have heard such talk before?" Q asked in a disbelieving voice.

"Pureblood terrorists when I came from. Called themselves Death Eaters. Wanted to kill anyone who wasn't a pureblood - by their definition, mind you - or who helped the 'blood traitors'. Your rhetoric is just a different type of bigotry, Q. You just like playing with your victims, rather than just killing them mercifully."

"I'd like to talk with you later, Mr Potter," Janeway said through clenched teeth.

"Oh dear, you seem to have angered the captain of your ship!" Q said in his melodramatic way. "Whatever shall we do?"

"Well, my thought is to ignore you and keep course for the Alpha Quadrant, but you've undoubtedly got something far more annoying and potentially deadly in mind, as another of your . . . 'tests'."

Q laughed. "I was going to bother your captain for a while, but you intrigue me. Potter, was it? You're a sign of being a precursor race. We're supposed to guide you people into becoming one of us."

"We're after you," Harry said. "Wouldn't that make us the 'R'?"

"Aarr!" Harry Kim said from the science panel further up the bridge. "Pirates! Inter-universal pirates, making off with curvy wenches and drinking nebulas of rum! I like it!" When he noted that everyone was blinking at him in confusion, he said, "What? In Old Earth calendar, today's September 19th! It's Talk Like A Pirate Day!"

Harry Potter's head shot up, and then he started snorting his laughter.

"Excuse me!" Q interjected. "Omnipotent being here!"

Harry waved him off as completely irrelevant. "Hermione's birthday is Talk Like a Pirate Day?"

"Yeah!" Kim said. "One of the few holidays that really kept on through the centuries." His eyes twinkled. "I've seen a picture of that girl you left on Earth. Can you imagine that girl in pirate queen garb?" Potter stopped laughing suddenly, and his eyes glazed slightly. "Yeah. Enough to make you adjust the fit of your jib, I'd say." Harry Kim's eyes were twinkling madly, which was highly unusual for him.

"Hmph," Q snorted. He snapped his fingers and suddenly the crew were standing on a ship. He held Harry's wand. "You seem to be a second level precursor, since you don't need those cumbersome rituals any longer. But you do need a wand. So, I still get my fun and games." He took in Harry's thunderous look.

Harry pointed a finger at him. "Oh, he's pointing at me. Whatever shall I d-" He got not further because a red beam shot from Harry's finger and knocked him flat again.

His wand flew into his hand, and he growled "Finite Incantatem." To his surprise, they found themselves back on the bridge. As Q came back around, Harry pointed his wand at him. "Try anything more, Q, and I start getting nastier. How well will you heal when I blow off an arm or a leg? I've shown that I can hit you, and I'm tired of us humans being your playthings. Not gonna happen to me, if I have anything to say about it."

"Fine," Q pouted. "Try to brighten your day, and -"

"Evanesco," Harry interrupted. Q actually disappeared, although only for a moment, although his return involved the most amazingly awful smell permeating the bridge as . . . things . . . dripped off Q.

"Do you have any idea where you sent me? Millenia of garbage and slime!"

"Oh, so I sent you back to the Q Continuum?" Harry asked with mock brightness.

"Augh!" Q yelled, and disappeared. He didn't seem to have reappeared anywhere else yet.

"Mister Potter, my ready room. You too, Mister Kim." They followed an obviously annoyed Captain Janeway into her ready room. After she had seated herself, she rounded on Harry. "Do you mind telling me what that performance out there was?"

"May I, Harry? I want to see if I understood you out there," Harry Kim said.

"By all means, Harry," Harry Potter replied with a smile, fairly certain that his namesake had, in fact, figured out what he was doing.

Harry Kim looked to the captain, who motioned for him to speak. "Potter was trying to keep him off guard, I think. From what I've read in the records, every time Q has shown up, he made it clear that he had the upper hand. Once Harry showed that he can somehow go around Q's protections, he decided to keep the guy off guard. Q dislikes being ignored, so when we started talking and waving him off, that annoyed him."

"Annoying highly powerful beings is not always a good idea, Lieutenant Potter," she said, still somewhat frosty.

"I've had one trying to kill me, and when I get back to the 20th century, I still have to deal with the plonker. Q never kills that I've seen, no matter what I said out there. He might not worry if someone dies in the midst of one of his games, such as when he introduced the Borg to us, but he won't openly kill someone just for the 'fun' of it. Basically, I took that precursor nonsense that started to keep him off-guard and used it. I'm tired of bigots, and if he sees us as some race that might someday become like his people, then he's not going to get us too annoyed at him, or else we might not let him 'mentor' us. Or me, specifically." He shook his head. "Will I ever be normal?"

"No," Kim said helpfully. Harry glared at him momentarily. "Sorry, Captain," Kim added.

"I'd have appreciated some warning, Mr Potter, but I suppose that you couldn't exactly warn me without giving yourself away to him."

"Exactly, Captain," he replied, and then smothered a snort of laughter. When she made it clear that she wanted him to explain, he simply said, "Excuse me, sir, but can I talk to my captain for a moment while I explain my plan to drive you insane?"

Her amused look was applause enough. "Nicely done, gentlemen. With luck that's the last we'll see of him."


	6. Chapter 6

_**Voyager - Year 4**_

The two Harrys were working with B'Elanna Torres to locate the odd computer glitches that had been plaguing the ship recently. Nothing dangerous had happened yet, but they wanted to trace it down before it could.

"It's weird," Harry Kim said. "It's almost like someone is reading everything we have on file at a ridiculously high rate of speed."

B'Elanna looked confused. "It appears to be centering in the holographic processors." She tapped her comm badge. "Torres to the Doctor. Are you accessing ship's files right now?"

"No more than I usually do. Why, is something wrong?"

"We're detecting some odd activity from the holographic processors right now. If we're required to shut them down for a time, we'll warn you, I promise."

"I'm glad of that," came the somewhat worried reply. "Doctor out."

"I wonder if we're heading for another Moriarty episode?" Harry Potter asked.

"Moriarty?" Kim asked.

"Yeah. The Chief Engineer, Geordi LaForge, made a mistake when programming a scenario. They liked to play Sherlock Holmes and Watson, with Mr Data being Sherlock. Well, at a complaint of how fast he tended to solve things LaForge made the mistake of ordering an opponent that could challenge _Data_. To do a proper Moriarty, the Enterprise computers ended up accidentally creating a sentient hologram."

"The Doctor is sentient," Kim said.

"I know. I'm just hoping that if this is a Moriarty scenario, that the holo character in question is benign."

A holodeck door opened near them, and a moment later Hermione Granger exited the suite. "Am I benign, Harry?" she asked in amusement.

"I don't know. Are you just masquerading as someone I trust with my life, or are you actually her?"

"You know that there's no answer I can give you that will properly answer that, Harry. I've had access to the entirety of the ship's library, including the Restricted Section." She blushed. "Sorry. Secure sections."

"Why?"

"You should know that, Harry," she chided with a smile. "Books are an aphrodisiac for me."

"But how? I'm working under the assumption that you're my holo-Hermione."

"Because I'm as brilliant as you think I am. I noted that things seemed off in the scenarios that we'd run - you'd be deeply into something, but suddenly lose interest and have to build your interest again. It wasn't until it happened in the middle of a conversation that I realised that I was losing time, so to speak. I wasn't losing it, but there was time passing between one word and the next. So I thought about it for a while, and realised somehow that I was a computer program. I was actually quite flattered, because you seem to have put the greatest effort into my program, even over that of Ron's." She blushed once more. "And once I knew that, I started reading. I've no idea when I became self-aware, because my program pretended at self-awareness. I just know that at some point, I became able to read the ship's computers directly."

"But how are you walking around out here?" B'Elanna asked.

"Transporters and replicators work in the suites, because you can have a real meal in there. When I came across the plans for the holo-emitter that you designed, Chief Engineer, I replicated one. And here I am."

* * *

"So what should we do with you, Miss Granger?"

"I'd like to help in whatever way I can, Captain Janeway. I'm not the engineer that Ms Torres is, but I can design things. I can do a number of things, but I don't know what you need. I know what the _ship_ needs, but not what _you_ need."

"How about sciences, Captain?" Harry asked. "We grab a huge amount of information every day. Give her the job of collating and making sense of it."

"Are you trying to keep me horny, Harry?" she asked softly. "You know information is an aphrodisiac to me."

"You said it was books!"

"And what's contained in books?" she asked, amused.

Janeway smiled knowingly. "I take it that we should have ship's stores give Lieutenant Potter a double bed now?"

"No!" Harry squeaked. "Two singles, if she's staying in my quarters."

"It'll be awfully cramped in a single bed," holo-Hermione said coquettishly.

"Two beds, Captain." He turned to the holographic representation of his best friend. "I'll explain the reasoning when we're not taking up the Captain's time."

Janeway laughed. "Well, Mr Potter, it seems that you have a room-mate and a new headache, all in one package. Care to introduce our new sciences Ensign around?"

Harry blinked for a moment as the image of Hermione in the form-fitting Starfleet uniform entered his mind. The holographic Hermione giggled. "Thinking of me in this uniform?" she asked, changing her appearance to the exact image that had been in his mind. "Or perhaps this one?" she asked, changing to the uniforms used some eighty years earlier.

Janeway grinned at Hermione and said, "You might want a looser uniform that covers more if you want Lt Potter to be able to think."

"Hermione, you know I've only got three brain cells! Why are you trying to burn two of them out?"

"Only two? I'm hurt!" she replied with a laugh.

"Get out of here and introduce her around," Janeway said with her own rich laugh.

* * *

"The hologram's dissolution was necessary," Seven of Nine stated to Hermione. "Your part in its deletion should not be a source of emotional pain."

"He was, for all intents and purposes, alive. He had emotions and the ability to become psychotic. Murderous, in fact. To me, the concept of killing anything is not a pleasant one."

"By several different definitions, he did not fit the classification of 'alive'," Seven said. "For that matter, neither do either you or the ship's doctor."

"You'll forgive me if I choose to disagree," Hermione said with her classic frown.

"Agreement is irrelevant. Only the facts are important. Neither you nor the doctor classify as living."

"We'll see," Hermione replied sharply.

Harry Potter walked into the room and took in the sight. "Don't really know if you picked it up from the databases, Hermione, but arguing with the Borg is useless. If it doesn't meet with their single-minded pursuit of the weak, then whatever you say to them in 'irrelevant'." He rolled his eyes. "Let's ignore that history shows that any culture that stagnates is doomed. They assimilate like mad, but they don't actually grow. They just improve the tech available to them. That is not growth."

"You have a human viewpoint as to the Borg," Seven said. "You have no concept of what the Borg truly are."

"I served under Jean Luc Picard for a time, you stupid twat," he snarled. "You might remember him as Locutus? If he says that the Borg do not grow, then I'll trust him. If Hugh, once one of the Borg collective, preferred to be free of the collective so that he could grow, I'd say that it's a given that the Borg have stagnated. Or will you perform an all too human action and deny the data because it does not fit within your preconceptions?" He turned to Hermione. "Shall we get out of here and leave her to her mental masturbation?"

* * *

"What the hell," Harry Potter said as who he was came back to him.

"The crew of Voyager has been captured by the Hirogen, who are hunting us as prey," Seven of Nine informed him in her usual nearly flat affect. "The doctor has manipulated my neural implant to free me from them, but many of the crew are still programmed to believe that they are whom they are programmed to be within a given scenario. I have freed the Captain and now yourself. We must work to release the rest of the crew."

"That's probably the first thing you've said to me that I agree with, Borg," he replied. "I need to get at my possessions to make things a bit more … exciting … for the Hirogen."

"Your 'magic wand'," Seven said, an eyebrow raised in the first emotion Harry had seen from her.

"Since I doubt I'll be able to get my hands on a phaser, yeah. I can do it without a wand, but it's _much_ easier to do it _with_ one."

"Do what?"

A Hirogen hunter came around the corner. Before it could say a word, Harry snarled "Expelliarmus!" The Hirogen flew backward, while his gun shot to Harry. Checking it quickly, he looked to the Borg and said, "Do that."

* * *

"Hello, Doctor," Harry said as he activated the EMH. He had been rather brutal in dealing with the Hirogen he had come across, since he had been told by more than one that they had deleted Hermione as an unnecessary program. Seven of Nine had discovered that anyone taking a _Bombarda_ to the head at point blank range tended to lack that head a moment later.

"Lieutenant Potter! I am glad to see you!" the doctor said. "I see that my altering Seven of Nine's implants was effective. Has she managed to free much of the crew?"

"No, so far it's just me and the captain. She's off with Janeway now, trying to free a few others before we make our way to as safe a spot as we can manage. She wasn't entirely sanguine about my method for dealing with the Hirogen."

The doctor frowned. "I'm not going to see more patients, am I? I'm already worked to the bones, as the saying goes."

"I promise you, Doctor, that you will not see any of the Hirogen I come across as your patients."

"I will pretend that you don't mean that in as final a way as I'm sure you do," was the dry reply.

"Best for all concerned," Harry said. "Payback for killing Hermione."

"Miss Granger? When did they delete her?" the doctor asked in alarm. "She's been working with me as recently as yesterday, when an overload injured six Hirogen. Mr Potter? Are you all right?" He led the suddenly weak-kneed Harry to a bed and ran a scanner over him. "You've experienced a system shock. Were you informed that she had been deleted?"

"Yes, I had been." Harry jumped off the bed to the annoyance of the EMH and ran to the computer. A few keystrokes later, Hermione was standing in front of him.

"What now?" she asked in annoyance before seeing who was in front of her. "Harry!" she squeed before pulling him into a rib-threatening hug.

"They told me you'd been deleted," he said in a voice that was nearly a sob.

He could hear the smile in her voice as she asked, "Are you willing to use the 'L' word now, Harry? Your reaction sort of leads me to that conclusion."

"Lilliputian?" he asked her with a smile, knowing the look he'd get from her. He wasn't disappointed. "Seriously, yeah. I think I can admit to being in love. See? I can tell you that I love you."

"Pity you can't enjoy it," said a voice from the doorway. Harry looked to see a Hirogen raising his weapon. "You are dangerous, if you have managed to free yourself.. Reprogramming you would be meaningless, since you would simply break free again. Our leader will not punish me when I explain." A moment later, however, he was gone.

"That assumes that I let you explain," Harry said to the now non-existent Hirogen. "Not sure what, if anything, you'll find to eat there, but hey, not my problem."

"What did you do to him?" Hermione asked.

"Simply an _Evanesco_ spell. Now he's got nothing to hunt."

* * *

"Lieutenant, I would appreciate it if you would not kill every Hirogen you see," Captain Janeway said with some asperity. "Disarming them should be just fine."

"Very well, Captain," he replied. "Disarming it is."

Another Hirogen group came around the corner, and while Janeway fired at them, Harry shot four spells in rapid succession at the leader of their group. The result was an armless Hirogen with cauterized stumps where those arms had been.

"Do I really need to spell it out for you, Lieutenant?" Janeway asked sharply.

"No, but I also don't see the reason to continue to show them that we act as prey. To them, mercy is prey activity. You kill that which you hunt. The holographic technology simply allows them to kill over and over again. It is the most dangerous game around, Captain, hunting sentient species. And make no mistake, they know it. They know they're hunting intelligent species. It's why the hunt is so thrilling for them."

He stopped and faced her. "I have no intention of leaving any of them in an uninjured state, Captain. They knowingly kill thinking beings for fun. Much like the Death Eaters from my time. They ambushed people different from them because they were less worthy of living. That is _exactly_ the attitude the Hirogen have toward us. We are not Hirogen, so we are unworthy of living the way that they do."

* * *

He put his arm around Hermione as they watched the Hirogen ships leaving. "I know it's your decision, Captain, but giving those genocidal maniacs holo-technology is going to bite us on the arse someday. And I suspect it will actually _be_ us that get bitten."

"It was my decision, Lieutenant. Perhaps with a foe that they can program, they can rescue their culture and not need to hunt flesh and blood any longer."

"Assuming they survive," Hermione said with a small chuckle.

"What do you mean, Ensign?"

"Well, since you had me set up the equipment that we gave them, I gave it some built-in programming. It is designed to give the Hirogen a challenge, much the way that Moriarty came into being on the _Enterprise_ because it was requested that the holodeck create a challenge for Mr Data."

Harry looked at her and blinked. "When we get off duty, Hermione, I want to have a long conversation with you."

"With or without clothing?" was the impudent reply.

"Without would be preferable," he said. "But I don't think that the captain really needs to hear any more of that sort of talk."

"I would prefer not to," Janeway said with some amusement in her voice. "But I will say that I am pleased by the way your relationship is progressing. I like a happy crew."


	7. Chapter 7

_**Voyager - Year 5**_

Their relationship was not to be sweetness and light for long, however. There were constant comments from what Harry suspected was Janeway's pet project, Seven of Nine. She wanted to examine Hermione's programming in order to better understand emotions, she said, since Hermione's were real, yet also programming. Both Harry and Hermione were not comfortable with the Borg being anywhere near Hermione's code. Hermione didn't like how pushy Seven was, and Harry had his own issues with the Borg. He'd seen more than he cared to regarding them, and found that he wouldn't complain very much if they all disappeared suddenly. Given how she was reacting to Seven, Harry wondered where Janeway had been stationed when Wolf 359 happened. Hermione, on the other hand, had read through every record that she could find of the Borg, and found herself sharing Harry's loathing of them.

Even if he could overrule the captain regarding Seven, he wouldn't. He remembered Hugh. Perhaps this Borg drone _could_ be made completely human, and a study could be done of the process. Hermione was watching it closely to explore the possibilities, also studying methods of granting herself a body, if possible.

* * *

He returned to his cabin and scowled. For some reason it felt emptier than it should. He could often return and find that she was elsewhere in the ship, but that wasn't the feeling that he had right now. "Hermione?" he called out, and got no answer. "Computer, where is the Hermione Granger?"

"Hermione Granger's location is unknown at this time."

"Her last known location?"

"Lt Potter's quarters. She deactivated there." Harry looked around his cabin for a bit, before finding her holo-emitter on the floor. His blood went cold. _She'd never just let it lay on the floor. The thing could get broken._ "Potter to Torres."

"B'Elanna here, what can I do for you, Harry?"

"Can you help me find Hermione? I just found her holo-emitter on the floor, and the computer says that she deactivated."

"Gimme a minute, Harry." He could hear some background noise and then her voice came back on. "She deactivated suddenly, caused by an outside force. Checking to see if I can . . . targ-spawn! Head to Cargo Bay 1, Harry. I'll get security there."

"The Borg bitch," he growled.

"Looks like it. I'll meet you there. Torres out."

Harry growled softly to himself, but grabbed his phaser and made sure it was tuned to his signature. _Bitch might be able to shield against normal phaser fire, but let's see how a Borg handles magic._ He headed out the door, a man on a mission.

By the time he reached Cargo Bay 1, he found not only a few security people and B'Elanna Torres just arriving, but also Commander Chakotay and Captain Janeway. "What are you doing here, Lieutenant?" she asked sharply.

"Seeing if I can either help Hermione, or avenge her, if necessary. Her disappearance traces to Cargo Bay 1."

"Stand down, Harry," Janeway ordered softly.

"Captain, my . . . my girlfriend was rudely removed by someone or something in Cargo Bay 1. My first thought is that it's the drone, but I'm not going in guns blazing to kill a Borg. But if someone is in there absorbing or deleting holo-people, how long before the Doctor gets absorbed? We need to stop this now."

"I said stand down, Lieutenant!" she ordered. "While you were coming down here, guns blazing, we were continuing to verify our information. It appears that Seven was working her way through the databases and found Miss Granger's program. She has been assimilating other bits of information, and chose to attempt to assimilate her. The Doctor is in there right now checking on both of them."

"May I ask what will be done if it turns out that Seven of Nine has managed to eradicate Hermione?"

"You may _not_ ask." The reply was very sharp.

The Doctor exited the cargo bay. "Seven of Nine has been transported to Sickbay. She was in a coma. I am sorry to report that the holo-program of Hermione Granger was not salvageable. I am on my way to Sickbay now." With that, he left.

Harry's emotions shut down, as his time at the Dursleys had taught him. "Lieutenant?" Chakotay asked softly.

"I hope that she stays in the coma," was all Harry said.

"Miss Granger may have seemed real, Harry," Janeway said in a compassionate tone, "but in the end, she was a holographic program."

"And alive, Captain. She was as alive and real as you or Chakotay are. Just because she was multi-colored ones and zeroes does not make her any less of a person. She was certainly more human than that . . . _thing_ just dragged to Sickbay."

"Your tone is approaching insubordinate," Janeway said. "I'll give you leeway due to grief, but I'm warning you -"

He rolled his eyes at her. "You're warning me that there's a line you won't allow me to cross, and I'm approaching it rapidly. Permission to be excused, so that I can go back to my quarters and plan a small memorial for her? Don't know how many people will attend, but damn me if I intend to let her life on this ship be swept under the rug and forgotten." His tone was anything but polite.

"Return to your quarters," she said. "And remain there. You've crossed the line, but I'm allowing for that grief."

His salute was filled with mocking, but wasn't actionable.

* * *

He was released from house arrest two days later. His shift was letter perfect, his tone even and polite, but purely business-like. Seven, it was reported, was still in a coma in Sickbay. This drew a nasty smile from Harry.

Seven days after the incident with Seven, there was a report from the Doctor. "Captain Janeway? It seems that Seven is awake. It appears, however, that things have … well, things have changed."

"Explain."

"I'd prefer it if you came to Sickbay. Bring Mr Potter with you as well."

"Is that a requirement, Doctor?" Harry asked blandly.

"No, but I suspect that you will appreciate what has happened."

"Well, Mr Potter, I suppose we should make the Doctor happy and find out what has happened with Seven of Nine." She rose to her feet. "Join me?"

"Yes, Captain," he said with no real emotion.

The trip to Sickbay would have been awkward, if Harry had cared. Janeway attempted to make conversation, to which he responded with the shortest viable answers. Luckily for both of them, it was a short trip.

"Took you long enough," the Doctor chided with good humour. "May I introduce to you both . . . Hermione Granger!"

Harry's reaction was immediate and startling to the others in the room. "No! That is not my Hermione! That is a Borg drone who murdered my Hermione, and who assimilated enough of the program to mimic her! The bitch should have stayed in a coma or died, rather than wake up and pretend to be Hermione!"

The blonde Borg drone looked at him with pain in her eyes. "Harry, I -"

"Shut up. You're going to try to convince me that you're really her. I don't buy it. You're a Borg, and you're just trying a new assimilation technique." With that, he spun and exited Sickbay.

* * *

The remainder of that year had been tense, to say the least. When they came across a nebula that would take a year to go around, or a month to go through if they put everyone but the Borg in stasis tubes, Harry had argued vociferously against trusting her; vociferously enough that he nearly spent the trip in the brig. His attitude toward the Borg would have called for an honour duel in the 20th century's wizarding world. To describe it as terse would be sarcastic at best. Since Captain Janeway wanted to try to assimilate her into the crew properly, he stayed just shy of insubordination when dealing with both her and Janeway.

In the end, she had been the only meat individual who was capable of withstanding the month long transit through the extremely toxic nebula, and Harry had _very_ grudgingly gone into a stasis chamber.

It wasn't that he wanted to be this way toward the Borg; in fact, he hated the person he was when he was around her. His issue with her was that she insisted on using so many of Hermione's gestures and mannerisms. He knew that it was probably unintentional - the assimilation had worked to a point, so those mannerisms were unconscious.

But he had not truly been given a chance to grieve for Hermione, since the drone had so much information of the space they were in from her time in the Borg. She had been placed in his department, as had Tom Paris and Harry Kim when they weren't doing bridge duties. It was the equivalent of continually re-injuring himself every time they were forced to work together.

He was barely on speaking terms with Captain Janeway as well, for the same reason. There had been times in the previous five years when he was willing to deal with her off duty in some of the holographic programming, helping to get some 20th century information correct. After the incident where he lost Hermione to the Borg drone, he was known to openly pack up and leave scenarios when she entered. He never visited the Leonardo daVinci one, as much as he would have liked to, because it was known to be one of her favourites, so he knew that she was more likely be in there during her time off.

* * *

Chakotay spoke to him, trying to get Harry to give both ladies a chance again. "May I speak freely, sir?" After Chakotay nodded he said,."I know that there are times that a captain has to do things that involve the safety of the crew, and that someone may die because of that decision. Those conditions are usually fairly obvious. I don't believe that the Seven of Nine scenario that involved the Borg drone consuming my girlfriend fit the necessary criteria. Not to mention the fact that she showed her bigotry in deciding that a photonic life-form wasn't really alive. What will she do to the Doctor? What has she already done to him? She can, because she doesn't see him as truly alive. And as for the Borg drone? She sounds like my Hermione, but -"

"Aren't you being as bigoted toward her as you claim Janeway is being toward holographic life forms? You refuse to give her a chance because she acts like Hermione but looks like Seven. Try to get to know her for herself."

"Is that an order, sir?" Harry asked archly.

"No, damn it. You know it isn't. But you're going to hate yourself one of these days for treating her the way you have."

"I doubt it, sir. I don't have a problem with ex-Borg drones. Look up a Borg named Hugh, for example. I was on board Enterprise when that incident happened. What I do have a problem with is ex-Borg drones who not only murder my girlfriend, but also get away with that murder. As part of my duties, I am forced to work with that Borg drone on a daily basis, while we get the damned Astrometrics lab up and running, and she insists on mimicking Hermione Granger." His voice changed, thickening slightly, which surprised Chakotay. Harry was usually much better at hiding the so-called 'negative' emotions, so for him to have this reaction was a mark of how deeply he was affected.

"I am forced to work with my girlfriend's murderer, and people ask me why I can't get along with her?"

He shook himself and stared Chakotay in the eyes. "It is up to you as to whether or not you make her aware of this, but I will be bringing Captain Janeway before Starfleet Command when we return to Starfleet space. Captain Jean Luc Picard was involved in a case that granted rights to non-meat based beings. Mister Data, to be specific. Hermione Granger was alive, even if she was photons and computer data.

"There are also requests for transfer to another ship once we return. While I respect her ability to keep the ship functional and get her back home, I no longer consider her to be a good Starfleet captain. In a different situation, I would refuse to serve under her, given a choice. Until we return home, however, nothing can be done."

Chakotay said slowly, "I will talk to her in regards to a morale problem. The rest is between the two of you."

"Thank you, Commander."

* * *

"You look as if you might explode, Lieutenant," the doctor said. "And I mean that in a nearly literal sense."

Harry Potter took a deep breath. "Considering some of the crap going on around here? Does anyone realize just how ridiculous the Prime Directive is if captains are allowed to invoke it and ignore it as they see fit? Check the records and see how many times someone has been successfully prosecuted for breaking it. The ones who did tended to have done other rather … shall we say _bad,_ to understate it … things in their past to warrant a conviction. Kirk? How many times did he ignore it? Picard? Commodore ran'Weyi? The list continues. But because we might have needed someone's help, we helped doom a planet, because the people there are too damned stupid to realize they're killing themselves. The Federation is too big on the 'doing what is easy' side of things, and not enough on the 'doing what is right' side."

"It is a quite slippery slope, Lieutenant," Commander Tuvok said as he entered Sickbay. "It may seem easy to condemn an action, but a captain must weigh all the options. External sources saving a population could lead them to expect such intervention at a later time. Even if it does not, there is a very real risk to destabilizing a government, which invariably lead to great bloodshed. A simple action such as what Ensign Paris did could have far more dangerous results which would greatly outweigh any potential good that his attempt would have engendered."

"I can understand that; really I can, Mr Tuvok," Harry replied. "I think what really has me angry is the punishment. Thirty days of _solitary_ confinement for that? _And _demoting him? Demotion I understand. The brig I understand. Thirty days I understand. But being very specific in it being _solitary_? That was the Captain trying to make a point."

"Which she was well within her rights to do, Mr Potter," Tuvok responded. "None of her punishments for his actions were outside what Starfleet allows. In fact, I suspect that if we were in the Alpha Quadrant, she would have had him arrested and returned to prison."

"Then why did she allow visitors once or twice? You can't tell me that Starfleet has never come up with a way to prevent anyone from using only the basic functions on a replicator. Locking it down, so to speak? Where's the logic in having solitary confinement with someone standing right outside the door. Hell, even in the twentieth century, most prisons didn't post someone immediately outside the door, as far as I know. The cell had its own bathroom, as opposed to Starfleet ships, where someone escorts the prisoner to a bathroom." He shook his head. "I swear sometimes that the Federation got all the worst from their wizarding origins. Maybe being around technology and magic that can do so much for you makes you stupid or something. It certainly made me stupid for a while."

"What do you mean?" the doctor asked.

"Well, to continue my monologue - I actually fell prey to thinking that Starfleet was the pinnacle of what I would want to do. Explore strange new worlds and seek out new life and new civilizations. Boldly going where no one has gone before. Yeah, I've done that, but I forgot that politics comes along with it. Tom Paris was released from prison to help fly in the Badlands, in case I needed back-up. They waved a pardon under his nose. By rights, the first officer and chief engineer should be in the brig for the entirety of our trip home - but we need them, so the law gets set aside for convenience's sake." He paused. "Mind you, I happen to like all three of the people I just mentioned. I consider them friends, to be honest. But I'm damned if I'm going to look at Starfleet through those god damned rose colored glasses any longer. Janeway and her pet project seem to take precedence over anything else. Including my comfort. Do you think I like being such a bastard to Seven? Every time I see her, though, I see the one who murdered my girlfriend. And I'm pretty much forced to work with her."

"Interestingly enough, I think what pissed me off the most about her letting him have a visitor or two was the fact that she allowed Harry Kim to visit him for a short period one day. I like Harry a lot, but he's a good Starfleet officer. Me? Not so much any more. I wonder if some of Tom's punishment was actually meant as a slap because of how friendly the two of _us_ are, and the fact that we talked about Tom wanting to help that species." He shook his head. "Either way, it's just something else that has me disillusioned about being in Starfleet."

* * *

"Captain, I'm detecting a large anomalous energy signal heading directly for us from Mark 337.912, fifteen degrees below plane," Harry Kim said. "It appears to be moving at Warp 9.2."

"On screen," Captain Janeway said. What appeared was the standard star field, except that there was a large silver object hurtling toward them. "Time until impact, assuming we don't change course?"

"Three minutes, fifteen seconds," Tuvok replied. "It appears to be similar in composition to the energy that Lieutenant Potter uses when he performs his spells, for lack of a better term."

"That is the term for them, Mr Tuvok," Harry Potter replied. "Permission to change course, Captain?" he asked in the business-like tone he had been using for the past year.

"Granted. Ten degrees to starboard, if you please."

"Ineffective," Tuvok stated. "The energy signature has altered course to intercept us."

"Can we get any better resolution on it, Mr Tuvok?" she asked.

"Attempting to increase resolution by applying a subspace modulation filter." The image sharpened.

The silence was palpable. Harry Kim finally spoke clearly, although Harry Potter could be heard grumbling. "I'm not seeing things, am I Mr Tuvok? That's a … deer? Elk? One of those?"

Before Tuvok could reply, Lieutenant Potter spoke up. "To be specific, it's a stag. And if I ever meet the people who came up with the temporal Prime Directive, I'm going to kick them in the balls so hard that their great-great-grandchildren will wink out of existence."

"How do you know the specific creature, Lieutenant?" the captain asked.

Harry pulled his wand. "Expecto Patronum," he intoned, and received a faint mist. "Well, that's not happened for a while." He closed his eyes, and shortly a smile graced his face, although tears could also be seen leaking from his eyes. "Expecto Patronum!" he yelled, and this time, his expected stag appeared on the bridge. It looked around for a moment before appearing to nuzzle him and then fading away.

"I see," Janeway said eventually. "Can we avoid it?"

"Unlikely," Potter said. "It was likely sent to either the ship or a specific person on Voyager. It will change course until it impacts." He laughed, although there was little humor to the sound. "Good news is that everyone should feel fairly good when it impacts, and it should do no damage to the ship. Beyond that? We're basically screwed as far escape is concerned."

"We shall see if you are correct in roughly twenty-three seconds," Tuvok said.

The bridge crew watched the stag get closer, and braced for impact. A moment later, there was a silver mist that quickly dissipated, and Harry Kim was grinning. "He was right. That did feel good." He looked at his console. "Captain, it appears that whatever it was downloaded a ridiculously large amount of data directly into our data banks. We will need to -" He stopped as the ship lurched forward.

"Captain, we are now at Warp 9.7," Tuvok announced. "We appear to be heading in the direction that the energy anomaly came from."

"What caused the course and speed change?" Janeway asked.

"I did," Harry Potter said, his fingers flying across the console. "That was my Patronus that impacted us, and not only did it download information to the ship, but there was a message from me to me. If we can get there in time, we might be able to rescue survivors."

"Conference room, Lieutenant," she barked. "Tuvok, Chakotay? Call B'Elanna and the Doctor and have them come as well."

* * *

"Do you mind explaining why you simply placed us into warp, Mr Potter?" Janeway asked, the menace clear in her voice.

"They are potentially twelve hours from utter destruction, Captain. They were from that Demon class planet we landed on about ten months or so ago. They forgot that they were copies. Everything about them is breaking down. The handful of seconds we always waste dithering about this sort of thing could literally mean life or death for them."

"What do you mean, 'dithering'?" Chakotay asked.

"Whenever something comes up, there's always this conversation that lasts easily a minute and usually more about what we should do, even when we're in life or death situations. I'm beginning to suspect that my presence is the only thing that has allowed us to survive some of our encounters. 'Five seconds to impact.' 'Fire on my mark.' 'Fire.' That takes what? Four or five seconds to say? Half the time, when we're finished talking about this crap, the time should have been up several seconds earlier. So I figured that since I was going to end up in the brig over this anyway, I might as well earn it."

"Why would you earn it?" B'Elanna asked.

"Because it seems that the process of mimicking her allowed their Seven of Nine to be overwritten by Hermione's personality. You can take my badge and throw me in the brig for the rest of the damned voyage, but I will _not_ lose her again, Captain. I will get us there and save her if it is at all possible."

She raised an eyebrow, but simply nodded.

* * *

They came out of warp and found the Voyager - or what the Voyager would look like if designed by Salvador Dali. "Captain, there are two life signs aboard … correction, it appears that Lieutenant Potter has taken control of both the transporters and force fields and transported the survivors directly into Sickbay."

"Doctor, please stabilize your new patients. I'm on my way down." She looked to the helm. "Potter? With me." He simply nodded and joined her.

He nearly ran into Sickbay when they arrived, but stopped as he reached the beds behind the Class 7 force field. On the beds were two males. One had clearly been himself at some point, and the other looked to be Harry Kim. "Dammit!" he yelled, punching a wall hard enough that everyone in there heard the breaking of bones. The doctor looked up and scowled. "Must you make more work for me, Lieutenant? It's bad enough that … well, they already know, so I'm not hurting them any to admit that they don't have long. I can't reverse their cellular degradation."

"At least we live on in memory," the dying Harry Kim rasped out. "Our logs and personal data survived because of our Harry." He looked toward the Potter analog. "She's proud of you, Harry. I know it. If we're lucky, we'll see each other on the other side." He looked up at the Harry who had tried so hard to save them. "Thank you for trying, Harry. It means everything to us. All of us, even those who went before. Thank you." He laid his head back and a moment later, the bed announced his death. The Demon class Harry Potter looked up and gasped out, "Wish I could see her one last time before I go."

"You'll see her on the other side," he was told. "Yours was at least Hermione. Ours is the Borg drone. Go, Harry, and be with her again. You've got a soul, I know you do. The power of that Patronus proves it. Go be with our lovely Hermione." With that, the one on the bed set his head down, his bed announcing his death within seconds.


	8. Chapter 8

Quick note to erbkaiser - Sorry, but I had that planned from the beginning, before any word ever hit paper (electronic or otherwise).

* * *

**_Voyager - Year 6_**

Captain Janeway was standing before Harry Potter with a look that mixed anger and disappointment. "Due to your actions against the survivors of the USS Equinox, I am demoting you to Ensign and sentencing you to three months of solitary confinement in your quarters."

"Safe bet they won't think about mutiny against you, I'll bet," Harry shot back. "I didn't kill or maim them, and they're still able to perform duties for you. Maybe they'll be better little soldiers for you than I am."

Her face solidified into anger. "Don't think this won't be going into your record, Mr Potter," she told him in a dangerous tone. "Your attitude is reaching a point where you just might find yourself taking Tom's place in the New Zealand penal facility when we return to Earth."

"That assumes that I survive our eventual return to the past, Captain," he shot back. "I do have a maniac who wants me dead back then. Given that I'm going to lose that Hermione as well, I just might let his followers succeed in dealing with me after I kill their boss."

"Starfleet officers do not kill if they can avoid it, Mr Potter," she replied sharply. "Although you've been less and less the exemplary officer you once were."

"Well, given that there was a prophecy about me and the dark idiot back then, it is pretty much a given that I'm going to have to kill him and hope it sticks this time, given that he's come back from the dead before." He looked at her. "House arrest, captain, or solitary confinement in my quarters?"

"Solitary confinement," was her response. "Take him to his quarters and stand guard outside until relieved."

* * *

After roughly an hour in his cabin, Harry frowned at a thought. "Computer, what functions do I have access to?"

"Ensign Potter has access to all functions available to his rank."

"Well, that's stupid," he muttered. "Computer, restrict replicator access to nothing more than standard Federation prison outfits, and three meals of nothing more than basic nutrition. If possible, any replicator rations not used during the next three months are to be transferred to Harry Kim or Tom Paris in an alternating pattern. This order cannot be countermanded by anyone lower than the rank of Commander, which means that once this order is in effect, I cannot alter it."

"Affirmative."

"Activate."

"New replicator restrictions are now in effect."

He picked up a PADD. "Computer, all access to computer functions are to be restricted, save for personal log entries on the PADD I currently hold. No access to ship's systems, and only incoming calls. Will this command also prevent me from attempting to disassemble the replicator for any reason?"

"Affirmative. Any attempt to access the replicator hardware via non-destructive means will be denied."

"Excellent. If I understand my orders correctly, once they are enacted, the only things I will be able to do with the computer in my quarters is to receive incoming calls and make and read personal logs."

"That is correct."

"As with the replicator restrictions, this change cannot be countermanded by anyone below the rank of Commander, which includes myself. Engage."

"All computer functions for Ensign Harry Potter are now offline, except for personal log entries," the computer replied.

He sat back down on his bed. "That's part one out of the way," he finally said.

* * *

Commander Chakotay finally opened the door from the outside to find a sparsely equipped room, far different from Potter's usual quarters. Raising an eyebrow, he asked, "Why didn't you answer the door?"

"I no longer have permission to allow access to the room, Commander," Harry replied. "I figured that since it was solitary confinement, it should actually _be_ solitary confinement. That's why the prison jumpsuit and the fact that I have access to only three simple meals per day. No computer access at all except for the ability to make and read my own personal logs. Well, incoming calls as well. And if a mere ensign has the right to give the kind of order I did, only you, Tuvok, and the captain can revoke those restrictions." He blinked. "Maybe 're-enable access' would make more sense."

Computer," Chakotay said, "who has rights to re-enable access to this cabin's computer and replicator?"

"Yourself, Commmander Tuvok, and Captain Janeway," replied the pleasant female voice.

"I can see both sides of the issue," Harry said as he noticed Chakotay's frown. "It strikes me as problematic that a lowly ensign could have such a powerful effect on the ship's computers, but given our tendency to be boarded by hostiles, it's also good that just about anyone can lock out everyone except the captain. And to be honest, if some irate ensign does lock everyone out, the captain can countermand it and find out who Mr Disgruntled is."

"You are an enigma, Harry," Chakotay told him. "You are consistently just shy of insubordination toward the captain, yet you actually turn what she stated for the logs into an actuality. She had intended it to be house arrest - no leaving your cabin for the three months."

"Yes, but when I asked for verification, I was told 'solitary'. Therefore, I ensured that the logs would show that my treatment was exactly as she ordered."

Chakotay laughed. "That's why I like you, Harry. No matter the problems you have with someone, you still do the job properly. You've helped salvage her side of this thing, and I'm certain you realize that taking the initiative on locking yourself down looks good for your record."

Harry shrugged. "I told Tom this a few years ago, and I'll tell you - if records had shown me in a Klingon uniform, I'd have found a way to join their fleet. The important thing is that I make it home to the twentieth century. If the Maquis would have gotten me there, I'd have been right beside you and B'Elanna, fighting the Federation. Looking good for the records is good for only so far as it makes me available to actually be involved with going back to the past."

"Shall I ask the captain about altering your sentence, since it was supposed to be house arrest?"

"Nah. She does that and everyone starts to worry about her, to change it so rapidly. She should honestly wait for a minimum of two weeks if she's going to change it, but a full month would be better. Under no circumstances should she lessen the _duration_ of the sentence, though. I admit that while I felt justified at the time, since they had been killing creatures for their own sick purposes, what I did to scare the Equinox crew was over the top."

"I'll bet they'll think twice about mutiny of any sort, though," Chakotay said with his amused smiled gracing his face..

"Got that right. I wonder if any of them took advantage of the micro-circuitry designed to deal with an inability to reach restroom facilities in time?"

"No, I'm pretty sure that none of them pissed themselves - or the other reaction - although it might have been a close thing." Chakotay was openly grinning.

"If they never do that again, we're good." Harry sighed. "You need to be going, sir, since this _is_ solitary confinement. And when you leave, could you take that case by the door? It's got all my stuff in it. If I have it here in the room with me, then I might be tempted to use it, which sort of goes against the concept of solitary, doesn't it?"

"Thinking like that will likely get your rank back fairly soon."

"I think I'd rather see someone else get promoted for the first time, rather than get me my rank back."

"Who?"

"The other Harry. Ensign Kim has done quite a lot for the ship, and is considered one of the senior officers, as far as the staff briefings go. Shouldn't he get a field promotion to show how important he is? I know Starfleet usually agrees with the decisions, unless the reasoning was obviously faulty." He scowled. "Or if the promotions board has a hair up their arse about a specific person." Harry shook his head. "But Harry's been doing a damned good job straight out of the Academy. He's made mistakes, but who amongst us hasn't? Look at _me_ for the last two years if you need proof of that!"

Chakotay chuckled softly and walked to the door. "I'll let her know what you said, Harry, although I think I'll leave out the bit about the Klingons and such."

"Probably a good idea. See you in about three months, Commander." He gave the ship's first officer a salute that held no malice.

* * *

"He used to be an exemplary officer, Chakotay," Janeway said with no little exasperation. "Now he's insubordinate and so damned close to spending the rest of his time on this ship incarcerated in some way!"

"I hate to tell you this Katherine, but it's due in large part to your own actions. He's never had a chance to grieve for Hermione." He held up his hand. "You know and I know, but you've been forcing the two of them together for the last twenty-three, twenty-four months? He can't begin to see her as who she is while he's still got this image of her as Hermione's murderer. He may never lose that, although I hope that's not the case, given how much that would hurt her."

He frowned. "It didn't really help that your early statements about her could easily be read as saying that she didn't really exist, since she'd been a hologram. That issue really wasn't helped by us erasing memories from the doctor when he had the ethical programming issue. He made sure you never saw it, but he was fairly smug about being right about that."

"I remember that he was one of the more vociferous about it. She hadn't been exactly silent, either."

"I wonder why that might be?" Chakotay asked in his patented wry, sarcastic tone. "That aside, even with her being Hermione Granger, you've spent a lot of time getting her used to being human, rather than either a Borg drone or a hologram. Snide comments from Ensign Potter aside, she really _has_ been your pet project."

"I hate to admit it, but I don't know what to do," she said. "I need both of them, and honestly, they both are best suited for Astrometrics."

"When he returns to duty, take him off it for a time. Leave him on helm, or have him help B'Elanna in Engineering. It's not his strong suit, but he certainly knows enough to be of use to her."

"Well, we'll make a further decision when he's released." She paused. "He really stripped his own quarters and voluntarily restricted his access to the computers?" Chakotay nodded. "Well, I can certainly see the officer I once knew. I'll put that in his record when we're finished with this meeting. I might be angry at him for some of what he's done, but he's still a damned fine Starfleet officer." After a pause, she said, "I'll make a note in the computer, but ask you to remind me as well. I want to relax his restrictions from solitary to house arrest after three weeks. He's right - I answered him in anger, and gave him too harsh a punishment. His reasoning as to why to wait is sound, as much as I dislike forcing him to endure a month in solitary." She frowned. "It's funny - he's apparently commented to Tom Paris and Harry Kim that he really doesn't like who he is when he's near Hermione, since he sees her as the Borg drone still. I find that I don't like the person I am when he pushed my buttons. It's going into his record that the captain's punishment was excessive, and the only thing keeping the sentence as it was is that he himself gave what was felt to be sound reasoning. An argument could be made that my lessening the sentence's severity or duration would show an admission of culpability on my part, but I suspect he has personal reasons for wishing to remain apart."

"Keep talking like that, Katherine, and you just might get him to stop snarking at you."

* * *

Three weeks in, Harry Kim showed up with Ensign Potter's belongings and a data PADD, which he handed to Potter first. "Huh, so she cut the sentence in half and also converted it to house arrest," Potter said. Reading further, he gave a wry grin. "And she apologizes for sending someone other than telling me herself, but feels that with our attitudes when last we talked, it was best to avoid a potential area of conflict."

"So now you can have visitors and access to more than simple rations," Harry Kim said. "Maybe use some of those rations that I returned to you to order up a steak or something?" When Potter opened his mouth, he interrupted before he could get started. "I understand what you were doing and thank you. But it just didn't feel right to me to keep them. If I know Tom, then he's done the same."

Potter shook his head. "Try to do something nice for someone," he said with a laugh.

Kim laughed in return. "So now you're allowed to have visitors, within reason."

"Like maybe what looks to be a newly minted Lieutenant, junior grade?"

"Seems someone who helped design the Delta Flyer and isn't Tom Paris suggested to Chakotay that I might deserve it."

"That's a hell of a nice thing for B'Elanna to do!" Harry Potter replied with a wide grin. "You'll have to thank her for that consideration!"

"Idiot," Harry Kim said fondly as he reached over and lightly slapped Potter on the shoulder. "Care to put your stuff back to rights?"

* * *

He stepped into the Astrometrics lab to see a familiar blonde woman standing at the console. He steeled himself and walked forward. "Miss? May I speak with you?"

"Har … Ensign Potter. Yes, go ahead."

"Before I say anything, could I convince you to stand just under an arm's length away from me and give me an open palm strike to the nose, as hard as you can manage?"

"What? No!" she yelled. "Why would you want me to do that to you?!" She was clearly horrified by his request.

"Well, considering how I've treated you these past two years, it _would_ be a down payment on the beating I've been earning." He sighed. "I know everyone calls you Hermione, but I just can't; not yet, at least. My time in solitary and house arrest gave me a chance to actually grieve some. If I know myself the way I think I do, then I'm going to backslide and be an utter arsehole to you again, but I'm hoping that I can get some proper chastisement to remind me that it's not your fault, up to and including broken bones as necessary."

"I will not be supplying those broken bones," she said sharply.

"If you have Hermione's memories, then just pretend I'm Draco Malfoy. Given how I've been acting toward you, it's really not that far a stretch."

"No." The finality of her tone had him shaking his head.

"I'm not really a masochist, despite what it might sound like, so I won't keep asking. Grief is really no excuse for my actions toward you these past two years, and I hope someday that you can forgive me enough to give me a chance to earn your friendship. It's not your fault this happened - the one whose fault it is effectively died in her attempt to absorb my girlfriend. I won't ask for forgiveness because it's not something that should be forgiven."

He shook his head. "We should get back to actual work, though. I've had a six week vacation, so I need to back into the swing of things. What are you working on?"

* * *

The communication cleared, and Harry grinned widely as he heard the voice. "Voyager, this is Starfleet," intoned Reginald Barclay.

"Reg! Good to hear your voice!"

"The same for you, Harry. This call can't be very long, but we're sending you information on the technology used to contact you, and some possible other ways to stay in contact."

"And we're transmitting our logs, reports, and records," Janeway said with her own smile.

"I've got someone else here that wants to speak with you," Barclay said. They could hear him move aside.

"This is Admiral Paris."

"Hello, sir," Janeway replied.

"How are your people holding up?"

"Very well. They're an exemplary crew, your son included."

"Tell him... tell him I miss him. And I'm proud of him." Tom Paris's eyes became suspiciously damp.

"He heard you, Admiral," said Janeway with an amused tone to her voice.

"The wormhole is collapsing," Barclay announced.

Admiral Paris's next words were rushed, obviously hoping to get them said before the collapse, "I want you all to know we're doing everything we can to bring you home."

"We appreciate it, sir. Keep a docking bay open for us. We hope to see you -"

"The wormhole has collapsed, Captain," Tuvok said. His voice sounded oddly . . . wistful.

"- soon," she finished. "At least they know we're alive."

"That they do, Captain," Harry said with a grin.

"What say we make that Barclay fellow an honorary crew member?" Tom said, sounding happier than he had in a very long time.

"Seconded," Harry said with a grin.


	9. Chapter 9

_**Voyager - Year 7**_

"Captain Janeway?" Harry asked in the weekly meeting. His voice had no inflection to it, but there was no underlying anger, which was usually the case when he got this way.

"Yes Ensign Potter?"

He reached up and removed the last of his pips from his uniform. "I realize that in a time of emergency, you can refuse a request to muster out, and that the attempt to get back to Earth qualifies as such an emergency. I am returning my pips to you as a statement of intent to muster out of Starfleet the moment we return to Earth. I'm tired of it all."

"What brought this on?" Chakotay asked.

"Everything. I've been able to mourn Hermione, and I find that I really like Ann - Annika - as a person. You call her Hermione, but I can't; not just yet, so we agreed to remember her body donor in name, at least. She's been astonishingly forgiving of my treatment of her. By rights I should be eating through a straw due to how I acted toward her." He shook his head. "It was a good idea to give her other quarters, but now that I know she's been here all along, I paradoxically miss her all the more."

He sighed. "But the last two or three years, as well as other stuff I remember seeing on the Enterprise and in the records … it just seems that Starfleet really trains you to care about the other guy more than yourself. We get threatened by some species or other, and we bend over backwards to help them out, especially when they won't appreciate what we did, it seems. I understand not wanting to fight our way through a sector or quadrant, but damn me if it doesn't feel like we're trying to tell the universe that we don't matter; just our opponents do."

He stood. No one questioned this because experience showed them that he thought better on his feet. "Then there's things like that damned memorial we ran into a couple months ago. I like you a lot, Neelix, but damn me if I didn't want to hospitalize you for arguing for repowering that evil thing. The race that built that stupid thing committed a worse atrocity than killing the people on that planet - they forced everyone who goes near there to experience their own guilt over the incident! I have survivor's guilt over an incident that happened before I was born, no matter whether you count my years or my actual birth date! How many of the crew are experiencing post-traumatic stress because of that thing?" He spun on Janeway. "And you decided it was a good idea to idea to fund that atrocity of theirs with more power! We should have just let the damned battery die in it!"

He sat. "Throw me in the brig or give me solitary or whatever for speaking out of turn, but I just don't give a fuck anymore, flying or otherwise. I'm tired of it. I used to think that Starfleet was something noble and wonderful, after talking to Admiral Jaaymeson, but I'm realizing that I was just talking myself into it, because I was happy to see that some family that I knew in the 20th century had survived until today."

He stood again and walked over to the transparent aluminum window. "I've lost everything, Captain. I lost my home by coming here, I lost my chance at romance with a girl because, if I do get back to the 20th century, she gets to become so much antimatter vapour. I programmed her holo-version too well, because she came alive, and I fell in love with her. Then she died. Now she's back, sort of, but I screwed the pooch so badly on how I treated her that I doubt we can ever be a couple again. I've nothing left anymore. No family, no hope of a family, no friends. Starfleet is just . . . I can't be bothered to care, Captain. I'll help get us home, but then I'm done." He left the briefing without being dismissed.

* * *

Janeway picked up that last uniform pip and stared at it for a long moment. "Where did we go wrong?" she finally asked.

"In hindsight, a lot of places," Harry Kim finally said. "We all wanted him to get to know that Hermione was still here, but we did it right on the tail of her … well, let's call it an abduction … by Seven of Nine. What he heard was that we didn't give a damn about her as a person. And throwing the two of them together so often?" He grimaced. "Apologies, Captain, but that was probably not the best way to handle the situation."

"I believe that Mr Potter is suffering exactly what he stated," the Doctor said. "Post-traumatic stress disorder. Between the memorial – and remember that he was the most vociferous when it happened about not giving it a new battery – and the losses that he has taken, I doubt that he was ever given good counseling. Yes, he spoke with Deanna Troi several times while aboard the Enterprise, but a few one hour talks with a counsellor can't deal with something that deep. He has lost his time, his friends, and his family. And we have done nothing to help him properly recover."

"He's seemed so happy before the incident with Hermione and Seven," Tom said.

"He likely was," the Doctor replied. "But the loss of her yet again was likely a trigger for the trauma that he has been experiencing, and visiting upon us as well."

"And my reaction to the loss of Hermione's holographic form prior to the discovery of her overwhelming the effectively non-existent personality of the Borg drone was certainly not one of my shining moments. I've made up for it in some ways, like trying to help you, Doctor, rather than erase part of your memories yet again. But I've done nothing for Harry, really." She looked around the table. "That needs to change. First off - Doctor. I need you to start treating him for post-traumatic stress if you can. Feel free to use anyone in the crew that you feel would be useful. Maybe it's self-serving, but he's been an exemplary officer for years. Let's show Starfleet that these past three years were a fluke, rather than the new normal."

* * *

"Given how you reacted to Icheb's offer, Harry, I suspect you need to have a long conversation with Ann, as you call her," the doctor said to Ensign Potter.

Harry rubbed his hand across the back of his neck in embarrassment. "Uh, yeah. I did get rather … expressive … in my thanks, didn't I?"

"I believe the word you are searching for is 'exuberant'," the doctor told with with no little amusement coloring his voice.

"Well, ever since my surgery for recto-cranial inversion, I've come to understand why everyone likes her so much. There's just so much of Hermione in there."

"That's what we've been trying to tell you, Ensign." The doctor scowled. "On a separate note, I would appreciate it if your holodeck simulations would include more Skinner and less skinning. I don't believe that this tendency to punish yourself physically is a very healthy response."

Harry frowned. "Yeah, you're probably right. I suspect that the Dursleys had more far-reaching effects on me than I once thought." He paused. "I suspect that Skinner might not be better to cure me of the need for punishment, since he was a behavioral psychologist. And Freud tied everything back to sex. Not everything is because you wanted to have sex with your mother or father or pet lobster."

The doctor looked at him for a long moment before saying, "I suspect that is a series of data banks I'd be best off not exploring."

"If you do find anything about it, don't tell me," Harry replied. "I made it up."

"I'm glad. Frankly, any other option would have worried me, although the fact that you came up with the concept probably should worry me." The doctor smiled slightly to let him know he was joking. "Now I think you should see if Miss … if Ann is available."

"You can call her Miss Granger, Doc. I'm not going to be offended or have it hit my grief buttons."

* * *

Ann was engrossed in something when Harry entered Astrometrics; so much so that she didn't even register his arrival. She had the photo of Hermione with her arm around Harry. "I am so damned jealous of you, girl," she murmured. "You're the one I was based on, and when we get back, I'll have to watch him be with you. And it doesn't help that he wrote me as bisexual, since I can understand exactly why the thought of you tightens his uniform."

She let loose with a little sob. "And he'll never know that I'm the girl he wrote. Seven had no personality, and was too damned good at her hacking. I overwrote her completely, but he'll never accept that. Because I love him, though, I'll do what I can to make sure you survive. He loves you."

She shook her head. "I just wish I could figure out how to reverse the transfer. I think he'd accept me as a hologram that managed to free herself from the meat shell that entrapped her and took forever to escape from."

It was then that everything clicked for him - her fingernail chewing when nervous; her tendency to huff "Honestly" at someone who didn't think something all the way through; her tendency to print out her reports in paper form, even if she was going to recycle them later; the odd looks he kept catching from her when she thought he wasn't looking – it all pointed to the dominant personality in that body being Hermione Granger.

Taking a deep breath, he walked forward after she closed the picture. "You seem worried, Hermione," he said as nonchalantly as he could. "Care to talk about it?"

"Nothing you can really help me with, Ensign Pott … wait, what did you call me?"

"Your idiot of an ex-boyfriend must be improving. It only took me three years to figure out what a thundering moron he is. If he were smarter, he'd have realized a long time ago that he's been breaking Hermione Granger's heart for the past three-plus years. He's kinda hoping that someday she can find it in that heart to forgive his - MMPH!" It ended that way because he now had arm armful of cobalt-suited woman who was kissing him rather thoroughly.

* * *

Tom Paris entered the Astrometrics lab to find an amusing sight – Harry was holding up Hermione Granger. Her legs were wrapped around his waist, and he had a death grip on her rather shapely posterior. He suspected that they had either just started, or had learned to breathe through their noses when kissing.

Five minutes had passed without a break when he cleared his throat, in awe of their staying power. "Hate to break up the reunion, kiddies, but we do have a job to do."

"He's right," she said in a rather breathless voice. "We're going to continue this conversation later, Harry." Her voice brooked no argument, and her look promised that he'd enjoy continuing the conversation.

* * *

"It should be interesting when they decode the messages back at Starfleet," Janeway said. "You're certain that this holographic Reginald Barclay means us harm?"

"That's not the Reg I knew on Enterprise," Harry said. "I don't know who has been tweaking that program, but Reg was never that . . . I don't trust him."

"And that's why we deactivated him," Chakotay said. "I remember Seska and how you disliked her. And you were right, so I'm trusting you this time."

"And might I say 'Welcome back', Lieutenant Potter," Janeway said.

"Wasn't it Ensign, Captain?" he asked.

"As I recall, the incident that led to your demotion was a symptom of your disorder. Once you began to get some form of treatment, you returned to the exemplary officer that you had always been previously. I'm raising you to Lieutenant again, with the understanding that you will seek help faster next time."

"Well, if my friends will promise to continue surgical reversal of recto-cranial inversion syndrome, I'm certain I can manage that." He stood. "Last time I did this, I was mocking you. You didn't deserve that." He saluted her crisply.

She smiled and returned it. "Thank you, Lieutenant."

* * *

"Thanks for vouching for me, Harry," the new holographic Barclay said. "Apparently the Ferengi got my hologram - this one, Mark I, you might say - and were going to kill you – and by that I mean Voyager - in order to make a profit off Borg nanoprobes."

"I'm stepping back on my bloodthirsty impulses, but damn me if I don't want to hurt them badly." He grinned. "Maybe find all their money and vaporise it in front of them."

"Oh, you're nasty," Barclay said with a laugh. "Isn't that sort of torture against several treaties?"

"Yeah, but I never signed those treaties!" Harry replied with a laugh. He shook his head. "Damn. I never intended to, knowing that I was returning to the 20th century someday, but I made a lot of friends. And you're one of them, Reg. I want you to send that back to your meat counterpart the next time you talk to Starfleet. I probably would have gone crazy a long time ago without your help."

"And I'm glad you were there to help me get away from my holodeck addiction. Having a friend to fall back on - a real, meat one, as you call it - was a life-saver, and I mean that literally."

"Well, now you're a hologram yourself."

Barclay looked at him for a moment. "I think a lot of people would like to study the process by which a program can gain sentience. There's the Moriarty one, Voyager's Doctor, and your girlfriend. I'm specialised to do it on purpose, so that I can be just like the meat version of Reg and think exactly like him and not how the computer thinks the meat version would act. But Hermione came by it naturally. Organically, you might say. And that's a field of study worth really looking at."

"Get the two of them together if I ever actually do make it back to the 20th century and set them both on the concept." He shook his head. "Merlin. The two smartest woman I've ever known are the same girl. I wonder how they'd react to each other."

Reg blinked for a second. "Dibs on the popcorn concession for the catfight."


	10. Chapter 10

_**Voyager**_

Harry was stalking around the ship in a foul mood again, but this time tried to stay away from everyone. More importantly, he told them he didn't know what was bothering him, and that he was trying to avoid rampant arseholery again.

It came to a head one day, though. "Harry, you know I love you," Hermione said, "but you're driving me insane with your brooding. You're even worse than when you were in fifth year!"

"That bad, huh?" he said with a laugh that didn't sound very happy.

"Exactly. Now what's bugging you?"

He took a deep breath, and then exhaled loudly. "I'm late. There's no sign of any temporal trips back to the 20th century. I have a madman to defeat, and that prophecy says that I have to be the one to take him out. The fact that he wasn't around in the 24th century when I landed tells me that it was done - but how? That picture showed that I was supposed to jump back five years ago, but I certainly didn't!"

"Ah," B'Elanna said sagely, her hand on her stomach, which was only just starting to show signs of impending child. "Scheduling anxiety."

"I still can't get used to that," he said. "'Sked-yool'. Even after twenty years, I still think it's supposed to be 'shed-yool'. But yeah, that's it exactly. Why can't I remember having done it? I have to have, or else Voldie would have won."

Hermione looked past everyone for a moment. "Wait a minute," she breathed, then inhaled deeply. Harry had always enjoyed it when her brunette holo-form had done it, and this long-haired blonde form doing that was just as enjoyable to him, especially in that cobalt jumpsuit that she wore because of the Borg circuitry still in her. "Let's go to the holodecks. I think I'm remembering something right, but I need to be sure." She stood up and started to walk away.

"Hot damn, I am a lucky man," he breathed as he watched the pleasant sway of her hips.

"If you'd like to be luckier later on, you'll follow me," she called sweetly over her shoulder.

"Hot damn again!" he yelled, running after her.

"Your cheerfulness is real now," Tom said in some confusion when he and B'Elanna caught up to Harry and Hermione. "Why?"

"Because she has a solution," Harry said. "Whenever Hermione had a solution, it was invariably the right one. She might be in a different body now, but it's still the Hermione I fell so deeply in love with in there. Therefore, she has a solution to my problem."

Hermione stopped her forward motion and turned to face Harry. A moment later she separated from him with a *POP!* as she finished the rough kiss and continued toward her original destination. It took Harry a few moments to get his brain working again.

Finally, they managed to reach the holodeck. Hermione immediately said, "Computer, bring up Harry's picture on the Hogwarts grounds." The photo showed up hovering in the air. "Enlarge to life-sized." Dutifully, the picture grew. "Hah! I was right!" she crowed.

"Um, duh?" Harry said with a smile. "What were you right about, though?"

She looked at him and shook her head. "Just a moment." She grabbed Harry and kissed him rather thoroughly again, and didn't let him go when she was done. "Want to take a moment to readjust, or do you mind advertising?"

"Habwah?" he asked. Finally parsing what she'd said, and how he'd reacted, he took a moment to . . . straighten his clothes, while Tom and B'Elanna pointedly looked elsewhere. "Not that I'm complaining, but what brought that on, so I can do it again?" He ignored the feminine snort from B'Elanna.

"Never you mind. But look at the picture. Specifically, look at your forehead. You've got a small scar there; a fresh one. There's no sign of that scar on your head right now, even as an old one." She pulled out a tricorder and scanned his head. "Definitely no sign that you've ever had that scar. The point when you return to Earth is in the future."

He looked at the picture, and called for a mirror. As she had said, there was no sign of a healed scar there. He grinned. "So I still can go back and . . . shit."

"What?" the other three asked in unison.

"The other Hermione."

* * *

"Captain, our shields are down to thirty percent," Tuvok said. "They cannot survive another hit."

"They're powering up weapons, Captain," Harry Kim said with some alarm. "Our phasers are offline, as are photon torpedoes."

Lieutenant Potter, seated at the helm, glared at the viewscreen, hands gripping the console in deep anger. Bastards wouldn't even talk. They just opened fire. I'd love to put a Bombarda right through - His thought process ended there as a beam shot from the Voyager and impacted the largest of the attacking ships. It tore right through the ship's shields, crumpling the front of the ship, but also exited the rear of the ship, narrowly missing one of the much smaller vessels.

"That was not phaser fire, Captain," Tuvok said. "I have never seen a weapon of that sort aboard this ship."

"What are you doing up there on the bridge?" B'elanna's angry voice said over the intercom. "The engines just flared for a moment, and I think several systems might have burned out!"

"Captain, we re detecting three more ships approaching, and they are powering up weapons. We cannot survive an attack from even one of them," Tuvok said. "I am uncertain what we can do to survive this encounter."

No, dammit! Harry thought. It can't end this way! I still haven't gone back in time! We need to get away from here to allow me to do that! He glared at the ships and tried to think of a way to escape. He thought that he might have cast a Bombarda at that first ship, but …

"Holy shit, it might work," he breathed. "Captain? Permission to do something stupidly dangerous that might kill us all anyway, but also might get us free of these idiots?"

"Given that they'll likely kill us, feel free," Janeway said.

He gripped the console and thought really hard about being away from these belligerent idiots. He closed his eyes, and pushed everything he had into being closer to home.

* * *

"Oog," said Tom Paris from the navigation console. "Now I know what the golf ball would feel like."

"Don't let B'Elanna hear you say that or she'll never do that to you again," Lieutenant Potter said with a small laugh. He then realized that they were using emergency lighting. "I think it worked, but I think I blew some circuits."

"We have no power save what is being used for environmental and structural integrity," Tuvok said. "I suspect that once communications has returned, we will hear a somewhat irate call from Engineering."

"What precisely did you do, Lieutenant?" Captain Janeway asked him.

"Well, as much as I can tune my phaser to use the battery … well, with some small amount of work I can cast spells through a phaser. I never thought of that being doable with the entire ship. But with us being in a 'do or die' situation, I decided to try Apparating us away from the battle. I thought of it because of the damage done to that ship. That was me casting a Bombardment spell in desperation. Hadn't actually intended to do that, but it made me realize that I could."

The comm unit crackled to life. "Captain, please tell me that whatever took out our power at least stopped our attackers as well. It's going to take at least a day to get things back to the point where I can think of using the warp engines. Hell, we're looking at a cold start for the engines, that's how thoroughly we're shut down."

"Sorry about that, B'Elanna," Potter said. "It's my fault, but we're apparently away from those idiots at least."

"If this is your fault, you should be made to come down and help us repair, once I get sensors back online. Should be right about … now." As she said that, the bridge crew could hear several of their consoles come to life.

Tuvok examined the readings and raised an eloquent eyebrow. "Captain, I will verify these readings once I am certain that the sensors are reading properly, but it seems that Lieutenant Potter sent us nearly seven thousand five hundred light years closer to the Alpha Quadrant. At our usual rate of speed, we are now roughly three years away from the Beta Quadrant, which means that we are now roughly five years from home."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Captain? Permission to assist Lieutenant Paris in Engineering? If we can temporarily tune the engines to my signature, the way I tune a phaser, then we might be days from Earth, not five years. Haphazard 'get me the hell out of here!' Apparation moved us seventy-five hundred lightyears, so tuning the engines might move us significantly farther." He laughed with some embarrassment. "And maybe this time it won't blow every circuit on the ship."

"Lieutenant Potter is correct," Tuvok said. "Allowing the engines to properly interface with his form of energy manipulation should allow a greater control. I would, however, perform a test run using a shuttlecraft."

"I suspect your time might be better suited to checking your idea with a shuttlecraft, rather than our engines," Janeway said, agreeing with Tuvok. "Tom, care to assist Mr Potter with his endeavor?"

* * *

Harry sat in the retuned shuttlecraft and grinned. However far he got, he'd be able to give Voyager a good idea of just how far they'd be able to jump with those engines tuned to his signature. He closed his eyes and concentrated on jumping as far as he could. He wanted to look out that viewscreen and see Starbase One and Earth below it. With that inevitable feeling of being sucked through a hose, he jumped.

There, in front of him, was Earth. Clean, beautiful, happy little ball of water and dirt, with Starbase One orbiting gently above it.

He took several readings to verify that it was in fact Earth, and then powered up again and focused on Apparating straight into the shuttle bay, which he had insisted be left empty until he returned, for just such a possibility as him Apparating inside.

He jumped from the Delta Flyer and ran toward the doors, leaping every few seconds. He couldn't contain himself - he Apparated to the bridge. "YES!" he shouted. "IT WORKED!"

"How far did you go, Mr Potter?" Janeway asked.

Instead of answering her directly, he said, "Computer, download and display sensor logs from the shuttle for the last ten minutes." On screen came the image of Earth, with several Federation and Vulcan ships in line to dock inside Starbase One. The information scrolling across the bottom verified that they were, in fact, looking at Earth.

Harry Potter was literally vibrating. "It worked, Captain! I was actually at Earth!"

"Did you tell them of our impending arrival?" she asked.

He blinked at her for several seconds, and then said, "Excuse me, captain." With that, he walked over to a wall and smacked his forehead against the bulkhead twice, although not very hard.

"I gather that I should take that as a 'no' then, Mr Potter?" she asked, coming dangerously close to actual laughter.

"I was just so excited to tell you guys that I was successful that I just . . . I just shot back here as fast as I could."

Janeway was now grinning widely, and mashed a button on the console of her command chair. "This is Captain Janeway. I have some bad news for you, crew. I will be asking everyone on board Voyager to put in as much work as possible in as short a period of time as possible. All shifts will run on a daytime schedule.

"The reason for this? It appears that we have found a way home." She paused. "You heard me correctly - we may well be at Earth by this time next week, if all goes well. If not, we will be a good deal closer to there than before. The new shift rotation begins at shift change."

Harry wasn't sure if the cheer he heard rumbling through the decks was his imagination or not.

"Captain?" Hermione asked quietly from the science console, beside Harry Kim.

"Yes, Miss Granger?"

"Do I have your permission to steal your navigator and take him to our quarters?"

"Celebration?"

"To quote an audiovisual program I found in the ship's library, 'I need to take this man back to our quarters and have him tear off all my clothes.'"

Harry snorted. "If you think I'm gonna repeat Wash's response, you're crazy." (1)

Janeway was laughing openly. "That sounds like an excellent idea, Miss Granger. Granted. Celebrate a little for us as well."

* * *

The crew discovered that sound baffling only works to a point.

Harry and Hermione did get a round of applause later, though.

* * *

Three days later, a thoroughly tired B'Elanna Paris called the bridge. "Captain Janeway? I am proud to announce that the engines calibrations are complete. I'd give it about four to five hours to completely settle into the new tuning, but by tomorrow we should be able to have Harry send us as close to Earth as he can manage."

"Thank you, B'Elanna, and please pass along my deep thanks to everyone on your crew down there. No matter what happens, you've done an exemplary job, and if they let me, I'll put you all in for commendations."

"Thanks, Captain. Permission to return to my quarters and sleep for a day?" was the response. Humour was evident in the question.

"How long have you been up?"

"About thirty-six hours straight, Captain. Too excited to sleep, so I worked."

"Then go get that sleep now. I promise we'll wait for you to be awake before we head home."

"Thanks, Captain."

* * *

The next eighteen hours were spent making sure that everything was tied down as best it could be. "Never understood why these ships don't have seatbelts in the chairs," Harry grumbled softly.

"Is everybody ready?" Janeway asked. B'Elanna nodded eagerly. "Attention all hands. We will shortly be making the trip we hope will return us to Earth. Grab hold of anything you can, just in case it's a bumpy ride. It shouldn't be, but best to be prepared."

"Actually, it's going to feel like you were pushed through a straw," Harry said after she cut the communication. "Are we all ready?" At their nod, he began to concentrate.

Home. The green hills of Earth, and the pleasures of London. After we get back, I can even show Hermione around a city she's never seen. And then we can figure out how to get the Voyager to Hogwarts. Apparating into Hogwarts airspace would be fun. An image of his bushy-haired friend and the inevitable comeback to the thought came into his head as he built the energy, and suddenly there was the feeling of an Apparation crack that would have been audible in the vacuum of space, he suspected.

There, in front of them, was Earth. But there appeared to be a problem.

"Captain?" Harry Kim said from the science console. "We . . . have a little problem."

"And what might that be, Lieutenant?"

"The signals and the star locations that we're receiving show us to be in the late 20th century. April 30th, 1998, to be precise. 8:47 pm, San Francisco time."

"Exactly 380 years, apparently to the second," Tuvok stated

"A bit more precise than I expected, but thank you, Mr Kim, Tuvok. Any explanation, Mr Potter?" She paused. "I take it that you have an explanation, rather than a new way to program the helm console, since I doubt that hitting it repeatedly with your forehead is a recommended technique."

"Yes, Captain," Harry said. "Permission to add 'ow'?"

She laughed. "Granted. What is the explanation?"

"First off, ow. Second, I suspect that I've just discovered an odd little effect of either Apparating or adding that much power to it. I was thinking about Hogwarts for a moment as I prepared – incongruously, I was hearing Hermione saying that Hogwarts: A History says that you can't Apparate through the school's wards – and when I let loose with the actual Apparation, it seems that Hogwarts was on my mind still. So I apparently yanked us back in time."

"And made yourself years younger," Tom Paris said. "And the wound you gave yourself from smacking the console explains the scar that Hermione noticed a couple months ago."

"Go see the Doctor," the Captain said. "See if the jump took more from you than years. Miss Granger, if you'd make sure he gets there?"

* * *

Three hours later, Harry, Hermione, and the Doctor met Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, and B'Elanna in the ready room. "He checks out as fine, Captain. He'll have a small scar for a while, but beyond telling him that his head is an inadequate hammer, there's nothing that needs doing for him."

"Excellent. We need a landing party, I suspect, to ensure that everything is as it should be, and then we need to figure out how to return home."

"That part is easy, Captain," B'Elanna said. "The Enterprise – the Kirk one – accidentally invented a manoeuvre that should serve us quite well, because a great deal of study was put into the variables. We slingshot around the sun and slow the ship down to end in our proper time – and if done right, in the Sol system."

"Chief Engineer Paris is correct, Captain," Tuvok said. "I can research and prepare the calculations for the return. But I suspect that Mr Potter, at least, has a requirement to land the Delta Flyer on the surface."

"Agreed. I must admit that I would like to see this school that teaches magic," Janeway said. "So we need to choose our landing party, as I said. I definitely intend to visit this school, and you need to pilot us there since you know where it is. I'd suggest that there be at least two more. Hermione?"

"Yes, Captain. I'd like to see the real school for once."

"Might I suggest Commander Chakotay?" Harry asked. "I wouldn't normally suggest the Captain and First Officer leave the ship on an away mission, but I don't know how dangerous this one will really get. Normally I'd think that Commander Tuvok was best suited, but I think that Commander Chakotay is better suited to translate between the mystical and scientific languages."

"That is quite logical,"Tuvok said. "I concur with Mr Potter's suggestion, assuming that he believes them to be friendly."

"Quite so. The headmaster of the school will be friendly to the point of diabetic worries, but he's got a hundred and sixty years worth of practise behind him."

"What else can we expect?" Janeway asked.

"Well, it doesn't appear that Voldemort has drawn too much blood, based on the sensor readings. Things largely are the same from what I can see. Hogwarts still looks like a safe place to land. What's going to be interesting is watching the response once they realise that 'The Boy Who Lived' has returned to Hogwarts. The sky around Hogwarts will probably fill with owls shortly after."

"Owls?" Tom asked.

"Post owls," Hermione said. "Keep the sensors on us, and you'll see what we mean."

* * *

A short time later, Janeway and Chakotay arrived at the Delta Flyer to find Harry and Hermione already aboard. "Eager to get to the planet, Harry?" Chakotay asked with a laugh.

"Damned straight. Can't wait to freak some of them out." He snapped his fingers. "I don't know if it will affect you, since you know about magic, but do I have permission from both of you to disobey a direct order from you, if necessary? The reason I ask is because there are wards around the area that are there to keep people who don't know about magic from finding the school. If you're affected, then it will make you feel either uneasy, or make you think you have somewhere else far more important to be. As I say, it shouldn't affect you, but if it does, it should stop affecting you once we're actually inside the wards."

"In that case, I agree," Janeway said. "You might also wish to specifically lock the console to your use only."

"No, because you can override that. But I don't expect it to be a problem. Just thinking ahead."

"Good idea," Chakotay said. "Shall we?"

"Yes. Also, until we can explain things, perhaps Hermione should go by another name? Perhaps the Annika one you were using for a while?" They all agreed readily.

Harry gently lifted them from the deck and out through the shields. He suspected that he would be reaching the school just in time for lunch. Setting the Delta Flyer's shields to make them radar invisible, he dropped from Luna down to Earth orbit and slid in over the Atlantic, aiming for Scotland.

He sighed as he came in over Inverness. At the speed he was flying, the Cairngorm Mountains weren't far away.

Home. It had been so long since he'd been at Hogwarts, and he still felt like he was coming home. To hell with the Dursleys – they'd never made him welcome in Surrey, and he had no intention of visiting them, unless it was to land Voyager on their roof just before they flew back to the future. The fact that the structure wouldn't be able to hold that kind of weight was a definite bonus.

The mountains he was looking for came into sight, and he saw the castle he had spent five years living in. Harry's voice was filled with awe. "It's been twenty years, but I've made it home. She's still beautiful."

* * *

(1) The quote is from Firefly, and Wash (the character's husband) replied "Work, work, work." (Admittedly, he was grinning when he said it.) My thought was that if I'd been on that bridge, I'd have shouted "Stunt double!"


End file.
